The Autism Society Event and Education Recordings Archive

This project was designed in order to meet the needs of parents who have children with high-intense behaviors. Feedback provided by the target population in the past has stated that previous parent trainings have not met their needs and that a more individualized training model could be more effective. This project was designed to provide individualized strategies to each parent and allow for feedback to be provided through both "before" and "after" videotapes and hands-on practice. The main goal of the project was to provide parents with the necessary behavior management skills to work with their children in the home and community settings.

The first step when designing this project was to select the participants. This was done by talking to the school’s behavior specialists and teachers in order to target the families of the students who displayed the most high-intensity behaviors. After this, each family was approached with the opportunity to participate. The first training was lectured based and covered the basic principles of behavior management and how to take data on a behavior. While the parents were in training, child care was provided. Between the first and second training session, each family selected a target behavior for change and videotaped the behavior. These videotapes were handed into one of the trainers before the second session. During the second training session, every video was watched. The trainers provided feedback on what each parent did well and what each parent could work on to help improve their child’s behavior. Parents were also given the opportunity to provide feedback to other parents. The third training session was broken down into two components. During the first half of the session, the trainers discussed some of the strategies covered in the previous session, but in greater detail. The second half of the session consisted of hands-on practice. Every parent went into the classroom and worked with their child. The trainers were in the classroom and helped coach each parent through the situation. This provided the parents with immediate feedback and the opportunity to implement the feedback immediately. The last session covered any final questions that the parents had and provided them with the opportunity to share their “after” videos.

The outcomes from this project were much better than we could have anticipated. Sixty-six percent of the school’s parents that participated attended all of the training sessions. This was significantly higher than the 8 percent that attended all of the previous behavior training sessions. The “after” videos showed tremendous improvement both in the strategies parents used and their child’s behavior. One child went from shoving his entire snack in his mouth in one bite, to eating one piece at a time, and another child went from refusing to clean up after play to putting all of her toys away. The surveys that parents filled out stated that this training was more effective than previous behavior trainings. The main components they felt were more effective were the smaller class size, more hands-on training and the video sessions.

This project enhanced the type of behavioral support that the parents of children with high-intensity behaviors receive. It provided parents with the opportunity to learn how to work with their child’s behavior through practice as opposed to lectures. It also provided the parents with the opportunity to share their experiences with a group of parents in a similar situation.