Use Of Behavioral Skills Training Research Articles

Dyadic Training of Communication Partners for Autistic Students: A Feasibility Study

Access to communication is a primary challenge affecting the education of Autistic students who use augmentative and alternative communication devices. This is compounded by potential communication partners (e.g., teachers and classroom paraeducators) who have insufficient training and skills to meaningfully engage these students in communication. To address these deficits in skills and training, this feasibility study used a multiple probe across participants design to test the effects of using behavioral skills training on dyads of teachers and paraeducators in increasing teacher-delivered opportunities to respond and student communication responses. The results show that after training, teachers’ opportunities to respond and use student-specific strategies increased. Following the teachers’ implementation of the strategies, students’ prompted and unprompted communication increased. These results provide evidence that supports the use of behavioral skills training to support communication partner skill development and student communication needs. These methods showed positive social validity with participants and demonstrate a professional development method that is more feasible for use by school staff than individual training. The results of this study provide initial evidence of the effectiveness of these methods with dyads of participants as well as with licensed teachers, extending the extant research, which often focuses on the individual training of paraeducators.

An individualized approach to teaching adults with autism to successfully navigate job interviews via remote instruction.

Adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience challenges securing employment, which may partially explain overall underemployment or unemployment in this population. One of the first steps to obtaining employment is participating in a job interview. However, social communication deficits may interfere with an individual with ASD's participation in a job interview. The current study evaluated the use of behavioral skills training delivered via remote instruction to teach interview skills to seven adults with ASD. Results showed overall improvement during interviews as well as posttraining tests with a career development expert. These data suggest that an individualized approach to teaching may be an effective strategy to help adults with ASD successfully navigate job interviews.

Training medical students to teach safe infant sleep environments using pyramidal behavioral skills training.

Medical personnel play a critical role in caregiver safe infant sleep education. However, training outcomes in the safe infant sleep training literature have been mixed. Promising approaches that warrant further investigation are the use of behavioral skills training and pyramidal training. The current study consisted of two experiments. Experiment 1 extended Carrow et al. (2020) and Vladescu et al. (2020) by teaching medical students safe infant sleep practices using behavioral skills training. Discriminated responding was examined across trained and untrained environmental arrangements using a multiple-baseline design. All participants arranged safe sleep environments following behavioral skills training. In Experiment 2, we used pyramidal behavioral skills training to train medical students to teach others safe sleep practices. Results indicated high procedural integrity scores following training and generalization of skills.

Using behavioral skills training to teach implementation of behavioral interventions to teachers and other professionals: A systematic review

AbstractThe current systematic review examines the use of behavioral skills training (BST) to train teachers and other professionals to implement interventions with individuals ages birth to 21. A total of 20 studies from 18 articles were included in the review. The SCARF protocol was utilized to rate article quality/rigor and outcomes of studies. All studies included in the review showed positive outcomes, suggesting teachers and other professional staff can be effectively taught using BST to implement a variety of interventions with fidelity. Seven articles were found to have sufficient quality/rigor scores in their primary outcomes to allow for interpretation of findings with confidence. Additional high‐quality studies are needed to examine the efficacy of BST to teach others to implement intervention to support skill development in individuals with disabilities. Implications for future research and intervention are discussed.

The Use of Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Components of Direct Instruction.

Behavioral skills training (BST) has been demonstrated to be an effective method for training staff to perform skills with high fidelity in a relatively short amount of time. In the current study, three components of direct instruction (DI) were trained using BST. The participants were two classroom instructors with prior experience implementing DI with students with autism. The targets for staff training were accuracy with signal delivery, error correction, and delivery of praise. A multiple-baseline design across skills was used to evaluate the effects of BST for each participant. Generalization probes were conducted with a student with autism during baseline and after mastery with each skill was demonstrated. BST rapidly increased staff performance across skills, with generalization demonstrated during classroom probes. This study extends the use of BST to training staff to implement DI, and the results suggest that BST resulted in improved teacher performance of the targeted skills duringgeneralization probes with students.

Addressing Puberty Challenges for Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Survey of Occupational Therapy Practice Trends.

Understanding occupational therapy practice patterns for adolescents who have autism spectrum disorder (ASD) provides a baseline to determine areas of need and effective interventions. To identify puberty-related challenges addressed and interventions used by occupational therapy practitioners with adolescents ages 8-16 yr with ASD. A nonexperimental survey design with a stratified random sample was used. The Occupational Therapy-Autism and Puberty Survey was distributed in the United States online through the Qualtrics platform (available October 2017-January 2018). Occupational therapists (89%) or occupational therapy assistants with experience with adolescents who have ASD were included. The 71 eligible respondents were primarily White women with an average 16 yr of experience. Outcomes and Measures: Nine key challenges and 11 interventions regarding puberty and ASD were identified. Hypotheses were generated before data collection. More practitioners (>47%) addressed emotional regulation and personal hygiene, and fewer (<26%) addressed menstruation, safety, and masturbation. Nearly all practitioners (>92%) reported using social learning approaches and behavioral strategies, and most (>80%) reporting having received education in these interventions. Significant differences were found between reported education and use of behavioral skills training incorporating applied behavioral analysis (p < .001), parent training (p = .002), and technology (p = .003). Practitioners are neglecting to address puberty-specific challenges with adolescents who have ASD. Opportunities exist to expand the interventions used and challenges addressed by occupational therapy practitioners for adolescents with ASD. What This Article Adds: This article expands occupational therapy literature by giving a baseline understanding of the puberty-related challenges that practitioners are addressing with adolescents who have ASD. This information can assist the profession in developing effective interventions and educational opportunities to allow practitioners to successfully address puberty-specific challenges.

Training of Paraprofessionals by Their Classroom Teachers: A Descriptive Evaluation of Pyramidal Training Outcomes

Pyramidal training may offer an efficient approach for disseminating behavior analytic teaching practices into public schools serving students with autism. In this study, we evaluated 16 teachers’ use of behavioral skills training (BST) while they trained paraprofessionals to use discrete-trial teaching (DTT). All paraprofessionals demonstrated high levels of procedural integrity following the training, although six of the 16 teachers received experimenter feedback to increase the integrity of the paraprofessional’s performance. A descriptive assessment of the training indicated that the majority of teachers used vocal instructions, modeling, and role play while training their paraprofessionals to implement DTT but only half of the teachers collected procedural integrity data to monitor the paraprofessionals’ performance. Although all teachers provided feedback to their paraprofessionals during the in situ portion of the training, the teachers were more likely to deliver feedback for errors than for correctly implemented components. These findings suggest that training teachers to implement BST with their paraprofessionals is an effective and socially valid approach to dissemination.

Use of Behavioral Skills Training with Teachers: A Systematic Review

Public school teachers often receive training in a professional development seminar or workshop format. These formats may be ineffective for teaching specific skills intended to be used in the classroom due to lack of practice opportunities. Behavioral skills training (BST) has proved to be an effective teaching method with a wide variety of populations and skills; therefore, the use of BST with educators may be ideal for specific skills training. We conducted a systematic review of the literature regarding BST with teachers to summarize the current literature and inform future practice. Studies which included teachers who were exposed to BST were identified and summarized based on teacher characteristics, student characteristics, treatment integrity measures, and quality indicators of design based on the standards of What Works Clearinghouse (WWC). Thirteen studies were identified for the review. Results indicated that BST was used predominately with special education teachers serving students with disabilities. Additionally, most of the studies in this review did not meet WWC standards or met standards with reservations. Needs for future research are discussed.

The use of behavioral skills training to improve staff performance of discrete trial training

Well‐trained staff are a prerequisite for successful implementation of treatment plans when working in human service contexts. The high rate of turnover makes the use of efficient and effective staff training all the more important. Previous research has used behavioral skills training to train teachers in correct implementation of discrete trial training of children with autism. They showed that a brief 10‐min procedure could effectively train staff and result in improved performance. The current study elaborated on previous work by using participants without prior exposure to the method, including treatment integrity data and testing for maintenance 1 month after training ended. The mean percentage of correct teaching responses for the three participants increased from 70%, 58%, and 66% during baseline to 97%, 96%, and 99%, respectively, following training. Results indicated that the training package was effective and the results were maintained 30 days later.

The Use of Behavioral Skills Training to Teach Graph Analysis to Community Based Teachers.

In this study, the experimenter trained three teachers to implement data decision rules to detect when instructional changes should be made during the visual analysis of discrete-trial percentage graphs. The experimenter used a concurrent, multiple-baseline design across participants. The experimenter trained the teachers to follow decision-making rules using instruction, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Following intervention, participants increased the percentage of correct data-based decisions and decreased the percentage of errors.

The use of behavioral skills training and in situ feedback to protect children with autism from abduction lures.

We examined the effects of behavioral skills training with in situ feedback on safe responding by children with autism to abduction lures that were presented after a high-probability (high-p) request sequence. This sequence was intended to simulate a grooming or recruitment process. Results show that all 3 participants ultimately acquired the safety response to abduction lures presented after a high-p sequence and maintained the safety response at a 1-month follow-up.

Evaluating the Use of Behavioral Skills Training to Improve School Staffs’ Implementation of Behavior Intervention Plans

Variations of behavioral skills training (BST) have been used to teach behaviorally oriented skills such as discrete trial teaching, guided compliance, the implementation of the picture exchange system, and safe guarding students with physical disabilities. One area that has not received much attention is evaluating school staff’s correct implementation of a behavior intervention plan (BIP). In the current investigation, we evaluated the use of BST to teach instructional staff in a special education setting how to correctly implement components of two students’ BIPs. Training consisted of two different phases: (a) verbal instructions and modeling and (b) rehearsal of the procedures. Results indicated that BST is effective at teaching staff components of BIP and that all staff’s implementation improved as a function of the training that was provided.

Caregivers as Interventionists and Trainers: Teaching Mands to Children with Developmental Disabilities.

We evaluated the use of behavioral skills training (BST) to train caregivers to conduct procedures commonly associated with mand training. We trained two caregivers on the following procedures: (a) conducting preference assessments, (b) delivering preferred items contingent on appropriate behavior, (c) capturing and contriving motivating operations, (d) conducting probes to assess the child's current mand repertoire, (e) errorless prompting procedures using echoic prompts, (f) vocal shaping, (g) collecting data, and (h) correcting errors. We also assessed whether a trained caregiver could in turn train their spouse on these procedures. We evaluated the effects of the intervention on the frequency of child spontaneous and prompted mands. The three caregivers performed near zero percent accuracy during baseline but increased to above 80% accuracy with training, and high performance persisted during most maintenance probes. These results were replicated for the parent who received training from their spouse. In addition, spontaneous mands were occurring more frequently than prompted mands by the end of the study. The implications of caregivers implementing mand training procedures based on Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior are discussed.

Establishing fire safety skills using behavioral skills training

The use of behavioral skills training (BST) to educate 3 adolescent boys on the risks of lighters and fire setting was evaluated using in situ assessment in a school setting. Two participants had a history of fire setting. After training, all participants adhered to established rules: (a) avoid a deactivated lighter, (b) leave the training area, and (c) report the lighter to an adult. The response sequence was maintained for both participants after training. The use of in situ assessment to evoke and observe infrequent behavior is discussed.

The Use of Behavioral Skills Training and In-Situ Training to Teach Children to Solicit Help When Lost: A Preliminary Investigation

Abstract Behavioral skills training (BST) was combined with in-situ training to teach young children to solicit help when they become lost from a caregiver at a store. Three children were taught to approach a cashier, tell the cashier their name, and inform the cashier that they are lost. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effects of training. One of the three participants successfully met the criterion with the BST + in situ training treatment package alone, and the other two participants required an incentive to meet the criterion. All participants maintained the safety skill at follow-up evaluations. DESCRIPTORS: behavioral skills training, early childhood, in-situ training, lost child, safety, social skills training ********** A missing or lost child is defined as "when the child's whereabouts are unknown to the primary caregiver, resulting in the caregiver being alarmed for at least 1 hour" (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002). In a recent parent survey, it was reported that 90% of families have lost a young child in a public place, and that 20% of families have lost a child more than once. Although the vast majority of these children are reunited with their family, being lost may expose a child to other dangers such as abduction and accidents (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002). The frequency with which children become lost and the potential dangers involved in separation make it important to teach safety skills in situations in which children might become separated from a caregiver. Behavior analysts have taught safety skills to children using behavioral skills training (BST). For example, researchers have evaluated the use of BST to teach gun play prevention skills (Himle, Miltenberger, Flessner, and Gatheridge, 2004; Miltenberger et al., 2004; Miltenberger, et al., 2005) and abduction prevention skills (Johnson et al., 2005; Johnson et al., 2006). BST typically consists of instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and praise or corrective feedback. Participants who do not perform the safety skill to criterion during the assessment sessions often receive "in situ" training. In situ training involves teaching the skill in the natural environment. For example, in situ training in the context of what to do when finding a firearm consists of a therapist entering the room, pointing out the firearm, and conducting a training session "in the moment" (Miltenberger et al., 2004). Some research (e.g., Himle et al., 2004; Johnson et al., 2006; Miltenberger et al., 2004) has shown that BST alone is ineffective for some participants; an in situ training component is often needed to meet the mastery criterion (see Miltenberger (2008) for a review of BST and situations in which in situ training is necessary in the context of firearm injury prevention). Although there have been several studies focusing on teaching safety skills to children, few have focused on teaching children to seek assistance when lost from caregivers in a store or public place. Taber, Alberto, Seltzer, and Hughes (2003) taught six teenagers with moderate disabilities to use a cell phone when separated from a caregiver. Taylor, Hughes and Richard (2004) taught teenagers with autism to seek assistance when lost through the use of a pager and a communication card. No research, however, has focused on using BST and in-situ training to teach young, typically developing children to solicit help when separated from caregivers in public. In the current study, BST and in-situ training were used to teach these skills. Method Participants and Settings Participants were recruited via flyers posted at a private school. In order to participate, children had to be between the ages of 4 and 6 and have no medical or developmental disability. In addition, their caregivers had to have reliable transportation. Three typically developing children and their caregivers participated. …

Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Programs: A Meta-Analysis

Conducted a meta-analytic evaluation of the effectiveness of school-based child abuse prevention programs. Literature searches identified 27 studies meeting inclusion criteria for use in this meta-analysis. The average effect size for all programs studied was 1.07, indicating that children who participated in prevention programs performed 1.07 SD higher than control group children on the outcome measures used in the studies. Analysis of moderator variables revealed significant effects for age, number of sessions, participant involvement, type of outcome measure, and use of behavioral skills training. Most important, programs presented over 4 or more sessions that allowed children to become physically involved produced the highest effect sizes. Although most often used only with younger children, findings suggest that active, long-term programs may be more effective for children of all ages.