The effects of group training and individual feedback on parent use of milieu teaching

This study examined the effects of training five parents to use Milieu Teaching procedures with their preschool-aged children with disabilities. In a multiple baseline design across families, parents were trained in two conditions: group instruction with home feedback sessions and intensive home feedback sessions. Parents were trained to use seven environmental arrangement strategies and four Milieu Teaching procedures to facilitate their children’s acquisition of specific communication targets during eight sessions of group training. The results of the study showed modest levels of performance of the language teaching procedures during the group instruction condition although parents did not reach criterion performance levels during the condition. Intensive feedback and coaching was then implemented in the home which resulted in criterion level performance by most parents and in acquisition of the target skills by the children. These results suggest that parents can learn some basic Milieu Teaching skills in a short-term group instruction format, but intensive practice of these skills will be required before parents reach criterion levels of performance. Also, longer term implementation of the Milieu procedures was required before systematic changes in child learning of targets were observed for most children. Factors contributing to variability in parent and child performance are discussed. arents are typically their children’s first language teachers. When children have developmental delays,JL the role of parents in language development is no less critical than when children are developing typically. All parents may benefit from specific training to optimize their natural rol