A randomized clinical trial of a virtual-training program for teaching applied-behavior-analysis skills to parents of children with autism spectrum disorder.

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.

Emergent completion of multistep instructions via joint control.

Teaching procedures that facilitate the emergence of novel responses allow for increased efficiency, which is critical when providing early-intervention services to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Three 5- and 6-year-old children diagnosed with ASD participated. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated functional control over the effects of teaching echoic rehearsals on the emergence of completing novel two-step instructions via joint control and obtained generalization and maintenance of the effects in an applied, nontraining context. In Experiment 2, we conducted an experimental analysis of joint control by disrupting rehearsal of the instruction and tacts of the objects in the instruction, which served as the sources of joint control. Our results support the efficacy of the procedures for establishing first-trial performance with novel instructions and indicate that joint control is responsible for the emergent performance produced by our teaching procedures.