Practitioners’perceptions of the implementation and adaptation of the IBI program in the real context of a Quebec rehabilitation center
Early intensive behavioral intervention for young children with autism spectrum disorders has been identified as an evidence-based practice (EBP). As such, the program Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI) was implemented in 2003 in Quebec public services following a direction given by the Ministry of Health and Social Services. The scientific literature clearly mentions the challenges of practical settings to implement EBP in mainstream services on a large scale, as well as the need to modify some of their components to adapt them to the actual intervention contexts in which they are implemented. This project aims to document the implementation of the IBI based on practitioners’s representations of the essential components of the IBI’s fidelity, as well as adaptations deemed favorable to a better fit to their context. This work is in line with practice-based research using clinicians’ knowledge as a source of information. The comments of ten practitioners from a Quebec rehabilitation center were analyzed by considering the five dimensions of Dane and Schneider’s (1998) model to assess the fidelity of implementation of proposed programs: adherence, dosage, quality, participation and differentiation. The results indicate that the practitioners have implemented the IBI with respect to the essential characteristics, but that some adaptations have been made to facilitate its implementation in the real context of a rehabilitation service.