Monday, April 4, 2016 at 2:00 p.m.
Neville Scarfe, Room 2415
Title: Teaching a Mother to use Behavioural Skills Training With her Child With Autism Spectrum Disorder
Supervisor: Dr. Laura Grow (SPED)
Supervisory Committee: Dr. Pat Mirenda (SPED)
Departmental Examiner: Dr. Laurie Ford (SCPS)
ABSTRACT
Clinicians use behavioural skills training (BST) to train caregivers and staff to provide educational support to individuals with developmental disabilities. Behavioural skills training consists of delivering instructions, demonstrating the skills, and providing opportunities to rehearse with feedback. This study is the second study to date to explore training a family member how to implement BST and is the first study to date to teach a parent how to generate a task analysis (Stewart, Carr, and LeBlanc, 2007). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a training package to teach a parent to generate task analyses and implement BST. The experimenter used a concurrent multiple probe across tasks design to evaluate the training package. The training package was effective for teaching the parent to generate a task analysis and implement BST to teach three complex tasks to her child. Social validity measures indicated that the parent preferred the rehearsal with feedback component of the training package compared to the other components. The limitations of the study will be addressed. The results of the study will be discussed in terms of implications for clinical practice and directions for future research.