title: All Together Now: Measuring Staff Cohesion in Special Education Classrooms.
abstract: This study sought to validate a new measure, the Classroom Cohesion Survey (CCS), designed to examine the relationship between teachers and classroom assistants in autism support classrooms. Teachers, classroom assistants, and external observers showed good inter-rater agreement on the CCS and good internal consistency for all scales. Simple factor structures were found for both teacher- and classroom assistant-rated scales, with one-factor solutions for both scales. Pairedttests revealed that on average, classroom assistants rated classroom cohesion stronger than teachers. The CCS may be an effective tool for measuring cohesion between classroom staff and may have an important impact on various clinical and implementation outcomes in school settings.
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Hilary E
authors.initials: HE
authors.lastname: Kratz
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Jill
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Locke
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Zinnia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Piotrowski
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Rachel R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Ouellette
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Ming
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Xie
authors.affiliation: Rady Children's Hospital, San Diego, CA, USA ; University of California, San Diego, USA.
authors.forename: Aubyn C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Stahmer
authors.affiliation: University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Mandell
keywords: autism; classroom cohesion; classroom team; teacher-staff relationship