This paper describes an evaluation of the effectiveness of Behavioral Skills Training (BST) as an individual parent training model. BST effects on parent responses to child behavior, and by extension, child problem behavior was investigated. The parent participants in the study had children under the age of 10 years old with diagnoses such as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Autism Spectrum Disorder. The researcher conducted observations in situ and via video transmission. Implications of the study include the ability to effectively apply an intervention for parents in situations where the therapist cannot physically come to the parent’s home as well as the effectiveness of using BST to teach general problem behavior management to caregivers. The results presented suggest that behavioral skills training as a parent training method is effective for increasing appropriate parent behavior, but results are mixed for its immediate impact on child problem behavior. Keywords: attention deficit disorder, autism spectrum disorder, behavioral skills training, parent training, problem behavior

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:22:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2009-01-23Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T19:48:38Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 garnica_krh_me_bauru.pdf: 888593 bytes, checksum: 3a4795b02d6a7d725805bac5c5e54827 (MD5) / A presente pesquisa teve por objetivos: a) descrever, a partir de filmagens, o repertório comportamental das crianças antes da participação em um Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais; b) identificar a frequencia de comportamentos internalizantes e externalizantes de crianças pré-escolares sob o ponto de vista de suas professoras; c) avaliar o comportamento socialmente habilidoso de crianças que frequentam a escola de Educação Infantil por meio de auto-avaliação da criança sobre seu desempenho social e da avaliação da professora sobre o desempenho social da criança, antes e depois do treinamento; d) verificar a eficácia do Sistema Multimídia de habilidades Sociais (SMHS) para crianças em idade pré escolar. Os participantes foram 18 crianças da Escola 1 (Grupo Experimental) e 13 crianças da Escola 2 (Grupo de Espera) com 5 e 6 anos de idade que frequentavam as turmas de Jardim II e Pré e duas professoras das respectivas turmas. Os dados foram coletados através de filmagens, da aplicação da Escola Comportamental Infantil ECI-A2 de Rutter, respondido pelas professoras, avaliação das habilidades sociais através do Sistema Multimídia de habilidades Sociais com auto-avaliação das crianças sobre seus desempenhos sociais e avaliação das professoras sobre os desempenhos sociais das crianças. A Escola 1 (Grupo Experimental), participou de três fases do estudo: primeira avaliação das habilidades sociais Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais (THS) e segunda avaliação de habilidades sociais, após o Treinamento. Já a Escola 2 (Grupo de Espera), participou de quatro fases do estudo: primeira avaliação de habilidades sociais, segunda avaliação de habilidades sociais (antes do Treinamento); Treinamento de Habilidades Sociais (THS) e terceira avaliação de habilidades sociais após o Treinamento. Os principais resultados foram: a) na análise das filmagens as frequencias... / The present research aims: a) describing, from filming, the behavior repertory of children before being part of a social skill training; b) identifying the frequency of inner and outer behaviors of pre scholar children under their teachers' point of view; c) evaluating the behavior socially skilled of children who attend kindergarten by means of self evaluation of children about their social performance and the teacher's evaluation of children about their social performance and after the training; d) verifying the fit of multimedia system for social skill (SMHS) for children in pre scholar age. The participants were eighteen children of the scholl 1 (experimental groups) and thirteen children of the school 2 (awaiting group) of five and six years old who attend the groups of kindergarten 2 and primary and two teachers of the respective groups. Data were collected by filming, by applying the child behavioral skale ECI-A2 of Rutter, responded by the teachers, social skill evaluation through social skill multimedia system with self evaluation of children about their social performance and the same from the teachers about the children. School 1 (experimental group), participated three phasis of the study: first social skill evaluation, social skill training (THS) and second evaluation of social skills, after training. Whereas School 2 (awaiting group), participated four phasis of studying: first social skill evaluation, second social skill evaluation (before training); social skill training (THS) and third social skill evaluation after training. The main results were: a) analyzing the filmings, the frequencies of skilled behavior of children display that, either School 1 or School 2, it was more for boys and less for girls, whereas for non skilled behaviors, boys displayed in School 1 a lower frequency than the girls and only in School 2 a hogher frequency than the girls... (Complete abstract click electronic access below)

Research demonstrates that video modeling and visual activity schedules have been effective in teaching students with disabilities a variety of skills. However, the instructional procedures used to teach students to acquire the necessary skills to perform the tasks can take time for the students and the instructors. A behavior skills training package was investigated within a multiple probe design across students to determine if four elementary aged students with intellectual disability, with and without autism spectrum disorder, could acquire self-instructional skills. The dependent variables in the study were the effects of behavior skills training on the acquisition of self-instructional skills and the effects of video activity schedules on the acquisition of novel skills. The independent variable was behavior skills training. Three students were able to acquire the self-instruction skills in an effective and efficient manner using behavior skills training. After learning how to navigate the video activity schedules, three students were able to generalize and maintain the self-instruction skills to learn novel tasks. The results suggest that behavior skills training may be an effective instructional strategy for teaching self-instructional skills to students with intellectual disability.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of individualized video-modeled Social Story interventions on the social communication skills of three children with High Functioning Autism/Aspergers Syndrome (HFA/AS). Using a multiple-baseline across participants design, video-modeled Social Stories were implemented and direct observations of the participants identified target behaviors were collected two times per week during unstructured school activities (e.g., recess). Overall, data demonstrated that video modeled Social Stories were effective for improving the rates of social communication for the participants, though modifications to allow access to social reinforcement was needed in two cases. In addition, all three participants demonstrated maintenance of skills at a two-week follow-up. However, generalization of skills was only observed for one participant.The present research provides no definitive claims of the effectiveness of a combined intervention for children with HFA/AS, Rather, it adds preliminary evidence that a combined intervention that teaches social communication skills and provides for a model of appropriate behavior may be a beneficial method of remediating social skill difficulties for many children and youth with HFA/AS.

All youth are faced with many social issues and problems on a daily basis, and youth in foster care are often less equipped than their peers to make good decisions for themselves. The SODAS problem solving method is a component of the Transition to Independence Process (TIP) model and is intended for personnel to use with youth to help them make better decisions when faced with difficult situations. The SODAS method is designed to guide youth through a problem solving method for a current situation, and over time to acquire improved problem solving skills. Three caregivers at a group facility for youth in foster care were trained in the use of the SODAS method using Behavioral Skills Training (BST) and were evaluated by the researchers in their use of SODAS in simulated role plays with the researchers and with youth participants to test for generalization of the SODAS method to novel situations. Results showed substantial improvement of caregiver application of the steps on the SODAS method from baseline to the post-training condition when researchers simulated the youth's role. Results also showed that caregiver proficiency generalized to novel situations presented by youth participants during their role play probes.

Child abduction is a serious problem in the U.S.; therefore, it is essential that researchers evaluate the efficacy of currently available abduction prevention programs. This study evaluated the efficacy of a commercially-available abduction prevention program, The Safe Side. The participants included six 6-8-year old children with no prior abduction prevention training. A non-concurrent multiple baseline across participants design was used to evaluate the effects of the training. The participants' safety responses were assessed using in situ assessments within two different situations (responding to a knock on the door of the participant's home and interaction by a stranger in public) and scored numerically. Any participant who failed to perform the appropriate safety skills following the post video training assessment received in situ training implemented by the parent. Additional assessments were subsequently conducted until each participant demonstrated the desired safety skills to criterion (three consecutive correct scores). In situ training was continually conducted as necessary.

Behavioral Parent Training refers to a broad range of instructional programs that teach parents and other caregivers ways to build and change behavioral repertoires of children. Most, if not all, such programs employ Behavioral Skills Training (modeling, prompting, role-play practice and feedback) to teach parenting skills. However, specific ways to use prompting during role plays have not been described in the behavioral parent training literature. The present study compared two methods of conducting role plays during parent training. A between group, pretest/posttest design was used to evaluate and compare the effect of using one versus two trainers on the role-play performance of parents and other caregivers involved in the child dependency system. Although both groups' posttest scores improved, there was no statistically significant difference between the one and two trainer groups. It was determined that foster and adoptive parents performed better on posttest measures than did biological parents and relative caregivers, regardless of group assignment.

The aim of this thesis is to study (1) the impact of physicians' locus of control (LOC) on their communication styles in interviews with cancer patients as well as (1) the impact of physicians' LOC on their acquisition of effective communication skills in a communication skills training program. LOC is a generalised belief regarding the extent to which life outcomes are controlled by an individual's actions (“internal” LOC) or by external forces such as luck, fate or other individuals (“external” LOC). (1) Although is it widely recognised that physicians' characteristics could influence their communication styles and may thus interfere with a patient-centred communication, no empirical evidence is currently available. No studies are available on the impact of physicians' LOC on their communication skills. It was hypothesised that physicians with an “external” LOC have a different communication style than physicians with an “internal” LOC. Eighty-one voluntary physicians with a practice in oncology were recorded performing an actual and a simulated interview with a cancer patient as wall as an actual and a simulated interview with a cancer patient and a relative. Physicians' communication skills were assessed using the Cancer Research Campaign Workshop Evaluation Manual. Physicians' LOC was assessed using the Rotter I-E scale. Communication skills of the upper and lower quartiles of physicians in respect of their scores on this scale were compared using Student's t-test. Results show that physicians with “external” LOC give more appropriate information than physicians with “internal” LOC in simulated interviews with a cancer patient (P=0.011) and less premature information than physicians with “internal” LOC in clinical interviews with a cancer patient (P=0.015). Moreover, in actual interviews with a cancer patient and a relative, physicians with an “external” LOC talked more to the relative (P=0.017) and used more utterances with an assessment function (P=0.010) than physicians with an “internal” LOC. In simulated interviews with a cancer patient and a relative, physicians with an “external” LOC used less utterances giving premature information (P=0.031) and used more utterances with a supportive function such as empathy and reassurance (P=0.029) than physicians with an “internal” LOC. (2) Although it is widely recognised that educational interventions may be more effective for people with an “internal” LOC compared to people with an “external” LOC, no study has yet assessed the influence of physicians' LOC on communication skills learning. This study aims to test the hypothesis that, in a communication skills training program, physicians with an “internal” LOC would demonstrate communication skills acquisition to a greater degree than those with an “external” LOC. A non-randomised longitudinal intervention study was conducted between January 1999 and April 2001. Sixty-seven volunteer physicians from private and institutional practice in Belgium participated to a learner-centred, skills-focused, practice-oriented communication skills training program. Communication skills changes were assessed in 2 standardised simulated interviews before and after training (one two-person and one three-person interview). Communication skills were assessed using the Cancer Research Campaign Workshop Evaluation Manual. Physicians' LOC was assessed using the Rotter I-E scale. Communication skills changes of the upper and lower third of physicians in respect of their scores on this scale were compared using group by time repeated measures of variance. In the two-person and three-person interviews, the increase in open directive questions was more important among physicians with an “internal” LOC compared to physicians with an “external” LOC (P=0.066 and P=0.004 respectively). In the three-person interview, the increase in directive questions (P=0.001), in assessing functions (P=0.002) and in the use of moderate feelings stated explicitly (P=0.011) was more important among physicians with an “internal” LOC compared to physicians with an “external” LOC. Conclusion. These results provide evidence that physicians' LOC can influence their communication styles as well as the efficacy of a communication skills training program. Physicians' awareness of first results constitutes a step towards a tailoring of their communication skills to every patient's and relative's concerns and needs and thus towards a patient-centred communication. The second results support the idea that a psychological characteristic such as "internal" LOC may facilitate communication skills acquisition through physicians' belief that communication with patients may be controlled by physicians themselves.

The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of five track athletes (three men and two women, aged 18-33 yrs) during a season-long PST-Biofeedback training program designed to help them learn how to self-regulate physiologically, psychologically, and emotionally. Three key psychological skills were emphasized: focus (Janelle, 2002; Nideffer & Sagal, 2006), arousal control through biofeedback training (e.g., Bar-Eli, Dreshman, Blumenstein, & Weinstein, 2002), and debriefing (Hogg, 2002; McArdle, Martin, Lennon, & Moore, 2010). The program, which consisted of one-on-one initial and final semi-structured interviews with PST-biofeedback sessions in between, was individualized to meet each athlete’s needs and progress during the study. Results indicated that the athletes found the program helpful; they perceived an improvement in their ability to focus, debrief, and control arousal in the lab; and, to varying degrees, they transferred those skills into training and competition. The athletes also perceived an improvement in their sport performances.

The purpose of the present study is to design and examine the effects of a Friendship Making Skills Training with Board Game on friendship making skills of fourth grade elementary school students. An experimental design (2X2) with one training and one control group and two measurements (pre and post) was used in the present study. The participants were 18, fourth grade students from a state elementary school in Altindag province in Ankara. Data were collected by the Friendship Making Skills Assessment Scale (FMSAS) that was developed by the researcher to measure the friendship making skills of the students. The experimental group (n=9) received a nine-week friendship making skills training with board game, which was developed by the researcher, while the control group (n=9) did not receive any training. The experimental group met twice a week, for duration of 40 minutes for each session. Non-parametric analysis was conducted by using Mann-Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Sign Tests. The results revealed that though there was no significant difference between experimental and control groups&rsquo / Friendship Making Skills Assessment Scale (FMSAS) pre-test and post-test scores, experimental group participants gained significantly higher total scores at the end of the study.