Analysis of Effectiveness and Efficiency of Two Types of Behavioral Skills Training

Training students, interested in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), can be carried out with Behavioral Skills Training (BST) (didactic instructions for teaching repertoires; modeling; role play and performance feedback). The goal was to analyze the effectiveness and efficiency of two types of BST on teaching integrity during the administration of discrete trial teaching (DTT) by psychology students as participants. An imperfect two-tier multiple probe design across pairs of participants was used. One type of BST with in-person modeling component was designed for six participants and another BST with video modeling without narration was used with four other participants. During initial probe and baseline, no one demonstrated teaching integrity greater than 20% DTT components completed correctly. After BST training with immediate and delayed feedback, all participants showed improvement in teaching integrity above 90%, indicating that training was effective. High integrity generalized to the teaching of children with ASD. Both types of BST were efficient, with similar average duration between groups of participants. The data was discussed in the sense that the case with video modeling may represent good cost-benefit, requiring less participation from trainers. Limitations and recommendations for future research were also discussed.