Association for Behavior Analysis International

As the prevalence of autism increases, the need for certified behavior analyst who provide Applied Behavior Analysis therapy to individuals with autism increases as well. Many cities across the United States have few to no certified behavior analysts to provide these much needed services. This has lead behavior analyst to develop and implement innovative procedures for the dissemination of Applied Behavior Analysis, including the use of telemedicine. Even with these efforts, there are still many families throughout the nation that are unable to obtain Applied Behavior Analysis therapy for their children due to several constraints, including cost. In this symposium, two programs that were developed to address this issue will be presented. Both programs aimed at training parents to utilize behavior analytic strategies with their children in their daily lives. Results on the efficacy of these programs will be presented, including the impact on parent and child behavior and social validity. Implications of these results as they relate to the dissemination of Applied Behavior Analysis will be discussed.

Around the United States, access to Applied Behavior Analysis therapy for children with autism is limited by various factors including a shortage of certified behavior analysts to provide services and lack of insurance/Medicaid coverage. As such, many children who would benefit from Applied Behavior Analysis do not have access to this therapy. A short-term hands-on training was developed to teach caregivers of children with autism to implement Applied Behavior Analytic strategies with their children throughout the day. Twenty nine families were taught how to implement strategies to decrease problem behavior and increase appropriate skills in their children. Data was taken on the caregivers ability to appropriately implement the strategies; on average, caregivers increased their ability by 25 points. Most families who participated were unable to obtain Applied Behavior Analysis therapy for their children due to lack of insurance/Medicaid funding and lack of financial resources. The format of the caregiver training, outcomes of caregiver and child behavior, and social validity results will be presented. The results of this study indicate that caregivers can learn to implement behavior analytic strategies with short-term coaching and feedback. And, this has a positive impact on their childs behavior. This implicates the importance of training caregivers.

Behavior analysis is associated with varying methods to aid staff and parents in delivering strategies with high fidelity, resulting in desirable outcomes for consumers (i.e. increased pro-social skills such as making appropriate requests, reduced problem behavior or reduced parent stress).Various means and measures have been used to assess the effectiveness of staff and parent-training methodologies (Baker-Ericzen, M.J., Brookman-Frazee, L, & Stahmer, A., 2005). The current study assessed a multimodal training package utilizing an on-line course of study and in-situ coaching using two different fidelity measures (The Instructional Session Performance Checklist and the CLM Coaching Checklist). Social validity was assessed via a parent questionnaire (Parent Stress Index, 4th edition). Participants were five parents of children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and five staff employed in an outpatient facility providing behavioral services for children with ASD in central Virginia. Parents were taught to implement strategies to increase prosocial behaviors such as making requests and following directions. Fidelity measures indicated that parents implementation of effective instructional methods increased from 95 to 97% for parent-trainers, 71 to 95%. Parent stress measures indicated a decrease of nearly 10%. Implications for delivering brief, effective and efficacious training packages will be considered.