Date of Award
6-2007
Degree Name
Master of Arts
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Dr. Linda LeBlanc
Second Advisor
Dr. James E. Carr
Third Advisor
Dr. John Austin
Access Setting
Masters Thesis-Open Access
Abstract
Autism spectrum disorders have a substantial impact on the lives of families and can result in a variety of enrichments to the family environment as well as certain specific stressors (Hecimovic & Gregory, 2005; Tidmarsh & Volkmar, 2003). One service that has proven effective for treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorders as well as improvement in family dynamics is parent training (Schreibman, 1988). The current study examined 46 individual client files from an outpatient parent training clinic serving children with autism spectrum disorders. Parents were taught to implement interventions for skill acquisition with their children using a behavioral skills training model (BST). The most common skill targets identified collaboratively by parents and clinicians were social skills targets, communication targets, and incontinence. Multiple intervention strategies were recommended by clinicians and learned by parents including BST, chaining, token economy, discrete trial teaching techniques, intensive toilet training procedures, PECS training, mand training techniques, natural language paradigm (NLP). Parents were able to demonstrate mastery across the variety of instructional strategies and demonstrated high rates of procedural integrity across all interventions.
Recommended Citation
Winter, Britt, "Evaluation of an Outpatient Training Service for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders and Their Families" (2007). Masters Theses. 4663.
https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/masters_theses/4663