News and Knowledge

In 2011, OAR’s Scientific Council selected seven applied research projects for funding. This month, we describe a study being conducted by researchers at the State University of New York and the Mary Cariola Children’s Center.

Study

Evaluation of Synchronous Online Parent Skill Training

Researcher

Marcie Desrochers, Ph.D., BCBA-D, SUNY-Brockport, N.Y., and Erin DiCesare, Mary Cariola Children’s Center

Purpose

To evaluate an online parent skills training program to increase adaptive behaviors and decrease problem behaviors for their children with autism.

Why Is This Study Needed?

Although parents are an essential element in treatment services for their child with autism, it can be expensive and time-consuming to teach them how to develop their child’s adaptive behaviors, especially if the family resides in a rural area. This research involves evaluating the effectiveness of an online training program to equip parents with knowledge and skills of empirically based behavioral procedures to teach their child desirable behaviors.

Study Methodology in Brief

Participants will consist of a total of nine families with a child diagnosed with autism. The children will range in age from 6 to 12 years old. The parents will have basic computer skills and will not have participated in a structured behavioral parent training program.

The online training program will feature interactive Internet instruction of basic content in behavioral psychology and synchronous web-based video interactions (parent rehearsal of techniques with their child and performance feedback provided by a qualified professional) to hone parents’ teaching skills.

Following online instruction in the content domain and demonstration of mastery on a knowledge test, we will ask parents to engage in the training behaviors with their child in their home. Real-time communication software (i.e., Skype ®), a bug-in-the ear communication device, and Internet-based video technology will be used by the therapist to teach the parent to engage in the desired teaching and interaction behaviors with their child. The therapist will provide the parent with immediate performance-based feedback based on a skill checklist (e.g., prepares the training area, gives instructions correctly, and delivers appropriate child behavior consequences) until a mastery criterion is achieved.

The researchers will comprehensively evaluate the effectiveness of this online rehearsal training program by measuring:

• Percent of correct parent training skills utilized during interaction with their child
• Frequency of child’s behavior and compliance with tasks
• Percent correct parenting skills utilized at two weeks following the completion of training
• Parents’ satisfaction with training procedures and perceived outcome of training on their child’s behavior
• Degree of retention of parents’ enrollment in the six-week training program.

Systematic research, using a multiple probe research design, will be conducted in an iterative fashion to evaluate and replicate the effectiveness of this online parent training program. Parents’ knowledge and skills when implementing behavioral techniques and observations of the children’s behaviors will be measured before, during, and immediately after the online instructional program with a two-week follow-up.

About the Researchers

Principal Investigator: Marcie Desrochers, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is an associate professor of psychology at SUNY-Brockport, N.Y. She has been teaching applied behavior analysis, research methods, and developmental disabilities courses to undergraduate and graduate psychology students for 20 years. Additionally, she supervises graduate psychology students in their practicum courses and behavior analysts in the community for board certification in behavior analysis.

Co-Principal Investigator: Erin DiCesare has the clinical knowledge and experience in providing services to families of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) that will allow successful implementation of the training procedures. She is a board certified behavior analyst (BCBA) and has been responsible for developing an applied behavior analysis (ABA) program at Mary Cariola Children’s Center. During this process, she has independently created and provided advanced training to classroom staff, developed individualized programs for students with autism and provided consultation to families of children with autism.