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Open Access Knowledge and Scholarship

Date of Award

5-2016

Culminating Project Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Applied Behavior Analysis: M.S.

Department

Community Psychology, Counseling and Family Therapy

College

School of Health and Human Services

First Advisor

Kimberly Schulze

Second Advisor

Eric Rudrud

Third Advisor

Benjamin Witts

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

Keywords and Subject Headings

parents, caregivers, autism, visual activity schedules, behavioral skills training

Abstract

Much of the extant research on visual activity schedules (VAS) involves professional behavior change agents, such as experimenters, therapists, and teachers, with little information about parent implementation in the home environment. The behavioral skills training (BST) literature also lacks studies on training implementation of activity schedules. A BST procedure consisting of instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback was used to teach parents of three children with autism to implement a VAS intervention at home. Experimental control was demonstrated using a multiple baseline design across parent-child dyads. Results showed that the BST procedure was effective in training parents to conduct a 50-component task analysis with high fidelity. Child on-task and on-schedule behaviors also improved significantly as a result of the intervention. Social validity was assessed via a 10-item questionnaire after completion of follow-up. Strengths and limitations are discussed, as well as implications for future research.

Comments/Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my graduate advisor, Dr. Kimberly Schulze, for her guidance throughout this project. Special thanks are due to Dr. Eric Rudrud and Dr. Benjamin Witts for their feedback on my thesis proposal. I would also like to acknowledge the contribution of my colleague, Helen Taylor, for her assistance with data collection.

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