An Evaluation of an In Vivo Training Package on Therapist Implementation of the Teaching Interaction Procedure

Individuals diagnosed with autism display deficits in reciprocal social behavior (Constantino et al., 2003). These deficits create direct and indirect social consequences (White, 2007). A procedure that has been evaluated to teach these children social skills is the teaching interaction procedure (TIP) (e.g., Leaf et al., 2009; Kassardjian et al., 2013); which is a procedure falling under the ABA umbrella. Despite the increasing number of studies utilizing the TIP to teach children with autism social skills, there are no recent studies examining the effectiveness of a training procedure for its use as a social skills teaching tool. The current study examined the effectiveness of the TIP as a training procedure for staff implementation of the TIP for teaching social skills to children diagnosed with autism. Three therapists and three children diagnosed with autism from a center-based agency in California participated in the study. Results demonstrated all three staff reaching mastery criterion during training probes, and, after training ended, maintaining and generalizing the skill to a high degree of fidelity