The effects of behavioral skills training on implementation of mand training teaching components

This multiple baseline study investigated the effectiveness of a behavioral skills training (BST) package in teaching three instructional assistants to implement mand training teaching components to a 13 year old student with autism. During baseline, the experimenter provided the assistants with a mand training checklist and instructed them to follow the steps to the best of their ability during a 5-mintes session with the student. Behavioral skills training consisted of a 5-minute session in which the experimenter provided each assistant with the training package (i.e., instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback) followed by a 5-minute uninterrupted session in which performance was measured. Immediately following achievement of the mastery criteria of BST, 5-minute post-training sessions evaluated each assistant’s ability to independently implement the teaching components in the absence of the prior BST session. Results revealed that the percentage of correct implementation of mand training teaching components increased significantly across all three assistants during BST sessions and maintained at high levels during the post-training phase