Journal Article

An Evaluation of Behavioral Skills Training for Teaching Caregivers How to Support Social Skill Development in Their Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Haesen, James, Simpson, Andrea, Thomson, Kendra, Danaher, Katey, Mahfuz Hassan, Makela, Tanya

2018

Overview

Limited research has explored how to best train caregivers to support their child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) despite caregivers being well suited to promote generalization and maintenance of their child’s skills in the natural environment. Children with ASD have been shown to benefit from social skill training, which is not always conducted in the natural context. This research examined the efficacy of behavioral skills training (BST) with, and without in situ training (IST), for teaching caregivers how to also use BST to support their child’s context-specific social skills. Although caregivers met mastery criterion within BST sessions, their skills did not generalize to the natural environment until IST was introduced. The implications of the findings are discussed.

• Publisher: Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Applied Behavior Analysis / Autism / Autism Spectrum Disorders / Autistic children / Behavior Modification / Caregiver Training / Caregivers / Child Development / Children / Developmental Disabilities / Efficacy / Environment / Generalization / Interpersonal Competence / Interpersonal Relationship / Language Maintenance / Maintenance / Mothers / Natural environment / Nonverbal Communication / Psychological Patterns / Skill Development / Skills / Social Behavior / Social development / Social education / Social skills / Teaching / Training