The research-to-practice gap has been widely described and lamented in the fields of education and special education. This gap is especially troublesome for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) given the rising prevalence of the diagnosis (i.e., 1 in 59 children; Baio et al., 2018), the multiple developmental systems affected, and the social and communication impairments that impede learning of foundational skills needed for school readiness. In addition, the extensive special education needs of children with ASD place considerable demand on educational resources (Lavelle et al., 2014).

Several intervention approaches have demonstrated efficacy in clinical or home-based settings where research staff, trained to high levels of implementation fidelity, implemented the intervention (e.g., Dawson et al., 2010; Kasari et al., 2010; Landa et al., 2011). However, few evidence-based interventions for young children with ASD have been translated successfully into feasible models for application in authentic early education environments, where educators have varying amounts of experience with ASD (National Research Council, 2001; Bondy and Brownell, 2004; Stahmer et al., 2005). In addition to these challenges, difficulty obtaining educator buy-in and high levels of fidelity of implementation (i.e., degree to which intervention was implemented as intended; Dykstra Steinbrenner et al., 2015; Stahmer et al., 2015) further contribute to low adoption of evidence-based interventions in public school classrooms serving children with ASD. Research is needed to define intervention ingredients that are feasible for educators to implement, thereby enhancing adoptability.

The literature provides some insight into barriers to implementation of evidence-based interventions in public school classrooms. One major barrier pertains to lack of adequate training to prepare educators to effectively instruct children with ASD (Scheuermann et al., 2003; Loiacono and Allen, 2008; Busby et al., 2012; Eapen et al., 2013). In addition, many educators express skepticism about the feasibility of implementing evidence-based practices in the “real world” (Stahmer et al., 2005). Many ASD early interventions are delivered on a 1:1 basis or involve play-based contexts (e.g., Kasari et al., 2006; Boyd et al., 2010; Dawson et al., 2010), which are not always valued in education settings (Dykstra Steinbrenner et al., 2015). Furthermore, administrators whose role it is to support classroom-based educators often report a lack of knowledge, training, and experience in ASD (Segall and Campbell, 2012) and special education (Billingsley, 2004). The resulting research-to-practice knowledge gap prevents the majority of young students with ASD from receiving evidence-based intervention, compromising student outcomes (Schwartz and Sandall, 2010).

Given the rising number of students with ASD, school systems are in dire need of evidence-based, cost-effective, and efficient educational service delivery models that address the intensive, specialized learning needs of children with ASD, as well as the practical needs of educators. Two priorities must be addressed: (1) empirically researched interventions must be translated for feasible implementation by community practitioners; and (2) such efforts must identify and propose solutions to the specific barriers to implementation of evidence-based ASD interventions in community settings to promote transportability and sustainability of implementation (Proctor et al., 2011). Our group is conducting a community-based study focusing on these priorities within public school classrooms serving preschoolers with ASD; this paper focuses on the second priority. Here, we report results obtained during a qualitative examination of the perceived acceptability of the Early Achievements (EA) intervention (Landa et al., 2011) by teachers, teaching assistants, and special education administrators (collectively, stakeholders) during the 2-year iterative process of translating the intervention for implementation by teachers. The aims addressed in this paper are to: (1) report on implementation barriers gleaned from meetings with stakeholders; (2) examine differences in perceptions between the two stakeholder groups; and (3) discuss feasible, effective solutions to key barriers based on their use by the study team in participating classrooms.

The current study is part of a larger, ongoing study funded by an Institute of Education Sciences Goal 2 (Development) grant. As defined by the funding agency, years 1 and 2 served as the iterative development phase. The larger study is collecting both quantitative (i.e., student/educator outcomes) and qualitative (i.e., feedback to guide iterative development) data. The qualitative data presented herein were obtained during the iterative development phase. The data are not available in a repository, but can be accessed for research purposes through communication with the authors.

Throughout the iterative development phase, the EA intervention was translated and revised for implementation in public preschool settings, and the professional development program was developed and revised. Simultaneously, educators received training and job-embedded coaching from study team members to support high fidelity intervention implementation. At regular intervals during this 2-year period, educators' and administrators' feedback was sought about barriers to implementation of the intervention and areas in which the professional development program could be improved. Based on stakeholder feedback, solutions were defined and implemented to address barriers. This iterative process is shown in Figure 1.

Barriers determined through qualitative analysis of stakeholder feedback are presented first, with proposed solutions to key barriers presented next, along with anecdotal accounts of the impact of the solutions implemented by the study team.

In the past decade, there has been an increased focus on translating evidence-based ASD interventions for community settings. Despite these efforts, there has been minimal successful adoption of these interventions in the community. In addition, the ASD intervention literature has not simultaneously examined educators' and administrators' perceived barriers to implementation, as we do here. We sought feedback directly from community stakeholders about barriers to successful EA intervention adoption in public preschool settings and three key findings emerged: (1) key barriers to implementation were consistent with those from the general and special education (non-ASD) literature; (2) discrepancies between educators and educational administrators in perceived barriers to implementation were evident; and (3) solutions to barriers were identifiable and involved processes of intervention simplification and embedding of intervention ingredients within familiar and accessible instructional practices. Parallel simplifications and supports also were required in the professional development program to ensure transfer from training to classroom and administrator support.

The overarching barriers to implementation of the EA intervention surrounded mostly large-scale educational system constraints and included issues of educator preparedness, engagement, and team cohesion, difficulties inherent in instructing students with ASD, and limited educational planning time, resources, and administrator support. These barriers were identified through direct sampling of stakeholders' perspectives, adding an important end-user dimension to the literature on barriers to adoption of evidence-based interventions into public school classrooms that is largely presented through the lens of researchers (e.g., Locke et al., 2015). Existing literature in the areas of general education, special education, and educational leadership validates each of these barriers, with particular attention to educator preparation (e.g., Brownell et al., 2010), burnout (e.g., Fernet et al., 2012), and engagement (e.g., Azad et al., 2015). Additional attention has been drawn previously to the time and resource constraints experienced by special education teams (e.g., Ostmeyer and Scarpa, 2012; Locke et al., 2015), the interdependence of educator motivation and administrator support (e.g., Thoonen et al., 2011; Locke et al., 2015), and philosophical barriers that reduce team cohesion (e.g., Nellis, 2012). When experienced by educational teams serving the complex population of students with ASD, these barriers appear to be compounded.

As supported by the finding that larger scale educational system constraints outweighed intervention-specific barriers, it seems that longstanding and well-established education policy, training, and procedural factors thwart successful adoption of evidence-based instructional practices by public school educators of students with special needs. Examination of these factors could benefit other researchers who are developing interventions for implementation in public school settings, and could inform teacher educators who are in the position to address gaps in teacher and administrator preparedness. The solutions described herein substantially eliminated the previously identified barriers and extend innovative concepts presented by Dykstra Steinbrenner et al. (2015) relevant to the intervention development process, including incorporating opportunities to secure input from implementers, emphasizing the value of their feedback within the research process, and highlighting changes made to the intervention based on their feedback. The methods and successful solutions outlined here may inform teacher educators' pre- and in-service curriculum planning, while also supporting intervention researchers in translating evidence-based interventions for implementation in public education contexts. This, in turn, may reduce pitfalls that contribute to the research-to-practice gap in special education and ASD early intervention.

Examination of the discrepancies in perceptions between the two stakeholder groups revealed implications for practice and policy. Barriers endorsed by educators but not by administrators were largely based on the everyday classroom experience of educators. For example, educators were keenly aware of the impact of large class sizes, inadequate resources to obtain developmentally appropriate toys and books, and the difficulties inherent in instructing students with ASD, particularly when one or more children in their class had severe behavioral challenges. Interestingly, they also reported their own difficulty absorbing the EA training content, a self-reflection that relates to other barriers noted, including gaps in professional preparation. The only barrier endorsed by administrators but not by educators was related to educators' occasional reluctance to adopt new instructional strategies, akin to, but falling short of, the resistance to adoption of new interventions reported in the literature (Cook and Schirmer, 2003; Odom, 2009; Maggin et al., 2010). Interestingly, the educators attributed their difficulties more to external factors than to their own motivation and buy-in.

Solutions implemented by our study team reduced most key barriers by simplifying and providing structured implementation supports. The impact of the solutions is described above; however, effective instruction in general for students with ASD may benefit from more systemic changes in policies, resource allocation, teacher, and administrator preparation, and procedural implementation (e.g., of school system-selected curricula) as they pertain to education of young children with ASD. For example, revision is needed in pre-service training programs for early childhood special educators, with enhanced training in areas such as positive behavior support. An additional implication for practice and policy is the need for targeted educator training paired with job-embedded coaching. Ideally, a professional development “ladder” would be defined whereby training, over the course of years, systematically builds upon established instructional skill. Such a ladder, with associated competency assessments at each level, would permit administrators to empirically define educators' readiness for more advanced training, optimize pairing of educators and instructional support staff, amount of supervision and coaching needed, and so forth. Ultimately, as more educators receive such pre-service training in evidence-based instructional practices for children with ASD, and as some become administrators and supervisors, high fidelity implementation of evidence-based practices will become more and more evident in classroom settings.

In the meantime, steps toward more comprehensive implementation of evidence-based educational practices for children with ASD may include focused efforts to inform administrators (school and county levels) of the learning needs and characteristics of students with ASD. Multiple recent studies have highlighted school administrators' self-reported need for training and education in best practices for ASD classrooms, especially preschool classrooms (Pazey et al., 2014), in order to effectively support educators within these classrooms. Based on existing research and this study's findings, it is clear that efforts in intervention development, community implementation, and educator training must place greater emphasis on the pivotal role of administrators. Future efforts should strive to include school and county level administrators in consideration of new intervention strategies, training, and implementation from the earliest phases.

RL: conception of the study and critical revision of the article; KW: data analysis and interpretation and drafting the article; RL and KW: data collection and final approval of the version to be submitted.