Incorporating Cultural Considerations While Training Parents to Implement Functional Communication Training

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

Summer 2023

First Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel H.

Second Committee Member

Kelly, Maureen A.

Abstract

In the current study we added additional demographic and social validity questions to a culturally adapted survey developed by Garcia (2018) and distributed the survey to 23 parents of individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Two parents who indicated further interest in training attended a Zoom® training session, which consisted of a PowerPoint® presentation on functional communication training that was adapted from Tiger et al., (2008). Effectiveness of this introductory training was assessed via a written pre-test and post-test. These same parents volunteered to participate in a skills-based follow up training consisting of an individual meeting with the experimenter to discuss the results of the initial survey followed by behavioral skills training (BST) in functional communication training (i.e., the parents were trained to teach functional communication responses to their child. In the initial meeting, the experimenter met with the participants and discussed their responses to the CARES to (a) identify specific parameters on the use of functional communication (e.g., whether it was considered appropriate to interrupt the parent, how important eye contact is to the parent) and (b) to identify specific situations involving the target behavior to be incorporated into the parent training. The BST was completed in two training phases. The first phase assessed the skills of prompting, correct response to problem behavior or precursor behavior, and correct reinforcement in the context of standard scenarios. The second phase assessed the skills of prompting and correct response to precursor or behavior targeted for change, and correct reinforcement in the context of specific scenarios that were common problem times for the families. Parents needed to score a 90% or higher to pass the BST. All parents met acquisition criteria following training.

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