No abstract

Parents play an important role in the treatment of their children's symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD); thus, developing effective, efficient, socially acceptable, and accessible procedures for training parents to implement applied-behavior-analysis (ABA) interventions is critically important. One potential approach involves delivering training via a virtual private network (VPN) over the internet (Fisher et al., 2014). In this study, we conducted a randomized clinical trial to evaluate a virtual parent-training program with e-learning modules and scripted role-play via a VPN. We evaluated parent implementation of ABA skills using direct-observation measures in structured-work and play-based training contexts. Parents in the treatment group showed large, statistically significant improvements on all dependent measures; those in the waitlist-control group did not. Parents rated the training as highly socially acceptable. Results add to the growing literature on the efficacy and acceptability of virtually delivered training in ABA.

We taught manual signs to typically developing infants using a reversal design and caregiver-nominated stimuli. We delivered the stimuli on a time-based schedule during baseline. During the intervention, we used progressive prompting and reinforcement, described by Thompson et al. (2004, 2007), to establish mands. Following sign training, we conducted functional analyses and verified that the signs functioned as mands. These results provide preliminary validation for the verbal behavior functional analysis methodology and further evidence of the functional independence of verbal operants.

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often display impaired listener skills, and few studies have evaluated procedures for establishing initial auditory‐visual conditional discrimination skills. We developed and evaluated a treatment package for training initial auditory‐visual conditional discriminations based on the extant research on training such discriminations in children with ASD with at least some preexisting skills in this area. The treatment package included (a) conditional‐only training, (b) prompting the participant to echo the sample stimulus as a differential observing response, (c) prompting correct selection responses using an identity‐match prompt, (d) using progressively delayed prompts, and (e) repeating trials until the participant emitted an independent correct response. Results indicated all participants mastered all listener targets, and the two participants for whom we tested the emergence of corresponding tacts showed mastery of most tacts without direct training. We discuss these results relative to prior research on listener skills and tacts.

Technological advances have allowed professionals to obtain extended recordings of caregiver–client interactions in natural settings, but scoring recorded video at normal speed to identify instances of low‐rate problem behavior is impractical in terms of scoring time. Fast forwarding is a continuous measurement system in which all seconds of an observation are viewed at a speed faster than normal. In Study 1, we evaluated whether three groups of five observers could discriminate problem behavior at three fast‐forwarding speeds across 10‐min observations. We analyzed the efficiency of using fast forwarding compared to continuous scoring, and interobserver agreement across the fast‐forwarding speeds. In Study 2, we compared the accuracy, efficiency, and social acceptability of fast forwarding (3.5x) and momentary time sampling (3.5 s) across 90‐min observations. Results support the use of 3.5x fast forwarding as a viable measurement system of improving the practicality of scoring problem behavior from video.