DINING OUT WITH CHILDREN: EFFECTIVENESS OF A PARENT ADVICE PACKAGE ON PRE-MEAL INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

The effectiveness of an advice package designed to restructure the restaurant environment and encourage parent praise was examined. Experiment 1 assessed the usefulness of the package when used with experimenter assistance. Videotapes were used to record the target child's behavior. Pre-meal inappropriate behavior decreased an average of 51% across target children. Mealtime inappropriate behavior and parent praise and disapproval were also measured. Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether families could implement the package without experimenter assistance and whether effects obtained would generalize to a different restaurant. Data were taken in vivo. Nine families were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Group assignment determined the order in which families went to two restaurants, the number of dinners each family participated in, and the point at which parents received the advice package. The order in which the families went to the two restaurants as well as the number of baseline meals was counterbalanced. Results of Experiment 2 showed that, when using the advice package, parents in all sequences were able to decrease pre-meal inappropriate behavior of their children, and that these effects generalized to a second restaurant.     

TEACHING SELF-ADMINISTRATION OF SUCTIONING TO CHILDREN WITH TRACHEOSTOMIES

We examined the effectiveness of using dolls to teach young children with tracheostomies to self-administer a suctioning procedure. Four children between the ages of 5 and 8 years, who had had tracheostomies for 6 months or longer, participated. After skills were taught via doll-centered simulations, in vivo skills were evaluated. All of the training and probe sessions were conducted in the participants' classrooms or homes. Results of a multiple baseline design across subjects and skill components indicated that the performance of all children improved as a function of training. Skill maintenance was demonstrated by all participants during follow-up assessments conducted 2 to 6 weeks posttraining. Results of a questionnaire completed by caregivers and interviews with the children revealed high levels of satisfaction with the training procedures and outcomes.     

PARENT REINFORCEMENT FOR CHILD ACHIEVEMENT: THE USE OF A LOTTERY TO MAXIMIZE PARENT TRAINING EFFECTS

This study describes and evaluates a reinforcement program in which parents earned lottery tickets and won prizes for the progress made by their handicapped children during home-based intervention. An ABAB reversal design replicated across three families was used to assess the effects of the lottery on the children's mastery of language skills. Results showed that the reinforcement of the parents for training accomplishments, as indexed by their children's achievements, produced clinically significant increases in the children's progress when compared with the children's progress under the routine supportive practices of the baseline condition. The implications of the findings for parent training programs in general are discussed.     

TRAINING FAMILY THERAPISTS: AN EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

This study implemented and evaluated a training program (a written manual, videotaped models, rehearsal, role plays, and performance feedback) designed to teach five subjects the skills to become effective family therapists. The study examined the therapists' use of three target behaviors: instructing, informing, and praising. The therapists, each paired with a parent and a preschool-aged child (2 1/2–4 1/2 yr old), were trained in the clinic to use, and to teach to the parents, several behavioral skills (e.g., praising, planned ignoring, and time-out) relevant to teaching children compliance to parental instructions. A multiple-baseline design across triads (therapist/parent/child) demonstrated that after the training program was instituted, the therapists increased their rates of instructing, praising, and informing the parents; all parents increased attention to compliance, decreased attention to noncompliance, and increased rates of praise to their children; and all children increased their compliance and decreased their noncompliance.     

USE OF A SELF-RECORDING AND SUPERVISION PROGRAM TO CHANGE INSTITUTIONAL STAFF BEHAVIOR

The use of a self-recording and supervision program to increase interactions between direct care staff and profoundly retarded persons in a state residential facility was investigated. Following baseline, staff were provided with instructions regarding what to self-record, criteria for how many interactions to record, and a prepared card on which to make the recordings. Throughout the study, the staff supervisor monitored intermittently staff-client interactions. Observations indicated that when the staff recorded their interactions with clients in a loosely structured dayroom setting, the rate of interactions increased noticeably for each staff person. Behavioral ecology measures indicated that other staff responsibilities, such as maintaining the cleanliness of residents and the physical area, were not affected detrimentally when social interactions increased and actually showed small improvements. Additionally, small decreases in resident self-stimulatory and disruptive/aggressive behaviors occurred when the rate of social interactions from staff persons increased. Follow-up measures indicated that the rate of staff self-recording was variable, but when staff did self-record, the increased rate of staff-client interactions maintained.     

Standardized classroom management program: Social validation and replication studies in Utah and Oregon

A comprehensive validation study was conducted of the Program for Academic Survival Skills (PASS), a consultant-based, teacher-mediated program for student classroom behavior. The study addressed questions related to: (a) brief consultant training, (b) subsequent teacher training by consultants using PASS manuals, (c) contrasts between PASS experimental teachers and students and equivalent controls on measures of teacher management skills, student classroom behavior, teacher ratings of student problem behaviors, and academic achievement, (d) reported satisfaction of participants, and (e) replication of effects across two separate school sites. Results indicated that in both sites significant effects were noted in favor of the PASS experimental group for (a) teacher approval, (b) student appropriate classroom behavior, and (c) four categories of student inappropriate behavior. Program satisfaction ratings of students, teachers, and consultants were uniformly positive, and continued use of the program was reported a year later. Discussion focused upon issues of cost-effectiveness, differential site effects, and the relationship between appropriate classroom behavior and academic achievement.     

Issues in multivariate assessment of a large-scale behavioral program

Several social and research issues directly affected the development and implementation of multivariate assessment in a large community-based applied research program. Examples are drawn from experiences of the Preparation through Responsive Educational Programs Project for disruptive and skill deficient adolescents in suburban, rural, and urban junior high school settings, focusing on the assessment of academic and social skill development and long-term skill maintenance. The social context altered both project treatment and follow-up plans, requiring assessment of potentially unintended effects and decreasing consistency across sites. Future community acceptance of such programs may depend on the investigators' adaptation to diverse community pressures for program conduct and assessment and the measurement of phenomena that are not always directly observable.     

Community applications of instructional technology: teaching writers of instructional packages

A community education program, to develop a variety of performance competencies in large numbers of neighborhood residents, requires a technology for preparing learning units administerable by community members themselves. The effects of a writing manual, designed to teach nonprofessionals to prepare such instructional packages, were analyzed in two experiments. Experiment I employed a multiple-baseline design across three university student trainees. The results showed that appropriate program writing increased by 75% after completion of the manual. The results of Experiment II, with two low-income neighborhood residents serving as trainees, showed that packages produced by trained writers resulted in a greater increase in skill activities than sets of training stimuli produced by untrained writers.     

SOCIAL-SKILLS TRAINING FOR UNASSERTIVE CHILDREN: A MULTIPLE-BASELINE ANALYSIS1

The effects of social-skills training consisting of instructions, feedback, behavior rehearsal, and modelling were examined in a multiple-baseline analysis in four unassertive children. The treatment was effective in that the behaviors selected for modification changed markedly. The effects of treatment generalized from trained to untrained items (interpersonal situations requiring assertive responding) and gains were maintained at the two- and four-week followup probe sessions. In addition, overall assertiveness in all subjects increased from baseline assessment to the conclusion of treatment and into followup.     

TEACHING COIN EQUIVALENCE TO THE MENTALLY RETARDED1

A program was designed to teach coin equivalence to mentally retarded adolescents. Coin equivalence was defined as choosing several different combinations of coins to equal specified target values. A pretest-posttest matched-groups design was employed with an experimental group receiving the monetary training, and a no-training control group. A multiple baseline across coin-counting responses was also incorporated in the experimental group. Training was divided into six stages, each teaching one specific method of combining coins to equal 10 target values from 5¢ through 50¢. A three-component response chain was used, requiring (a) naming, (b) selecting and counting, and (c) depositing target monetary values into a coin machine. Experimental subjects improved significantly in coin equivalence performance and maintained their skill on follow up tests; control subjects did not.