The effects of fluency training on performance, maintenance, and generalization of parent training skills were examined within the context of a classroom and home setting. Three foster parents attended a 24-hour Parenting Tools for Positive Behavior Change (PBC) course. Participants completed timed fluency drills using flash cards to increase learning and performance of PBC tools. A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used to assess participant performance on flash card drills and PBC tools during in-class, pre-test, and post-test role plays, and in novel situations with children in the home before, during and after the course. Results showed that fluency training had little or no effect on increasing tool performance across all testing phases for all participants, nor were there any changes in frequency and accuracy of fluency trained tools in the home to indicate maintenance and generalization of treatment effects.

Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) is an effective teaching package that is often used to teach new parenting skills. While BPT has been established as efficacious in teaching parenting skills, performance often returns to baseline levels. There may be myriad reasons for this; however, it is possible that competing contingencies in difficult behavioral interactions, and long histories of practices that solve behavioral issues in the short term, affect parents’ ability to implement what they were taught. This study sought to impact parental treatment integrity of a common set of parent training practices via an Acceptance and Commitment Training protocol. Parents were exposed to a behavioral parent training workshop targeting three parenting tools. Follow up measures were collected on implementation integrity and rate of parental coercive behaviors. Low levels of parenting skill implementation integrity were observed during baseline. Following the BPT training phase, implementation of parenting skills showed an increasing trend while parental coercives decreased in level. For the parent who met mastery criteria for all three tools, a follow up period, in which no feedback or training was implemented, and a decrease in level in parenting skill implementation integrity was observed. Following this, the parent participated in an Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACTr) workshop consisting of experiential exercises, metaphors, and homework assignments. After the ACTr workshop, implementation of parenting skills showed a continued increasing trend toward mastery, and frequency of negative parent-child interactions showed a further decreasing trend, as well for all parents.