| Abstract: Home-based and center-based care programs invest a lot of time and resources training front-line staff to implement behavioral programming. However, while staff spends a significant portion of time with clients, the majority of a clients time is actually spent with their primary caretakers. Clients diagnosed with disabilities in particular need the environment to be specially arranged to maximize learning opportunities. Since caregivers spend so much time with their dependents they are an essential component to any treatment team. Given the high number of contact hours between clients and caregivers it is not surprising that caregiver involvement in training predicts better outcomes in treatment. During this event we will discuss issues involved in training primary caregivers to implement behavioral programming with their dependents. The topics will include how to better include parents in programming, how to adequately train parents, and parent expectations. Ideally, this will encourage behavior analysts and their affiliated agencies to program for more caregiver participation, which will in turn directly impact client progress. |