A comprehensive behavioral observation system for assessing the teaching skills of parents of developmentally disabled children was developed and validated through a series of three studies. The Code for the Assessment of Teaching Skills (CATS) was developed in the context of work with parents of young children with severe handicaps. Parent skills in the delivery of instructions, use of positive consequences and corrective feedback, and behavior management skills were assessed. In addition, data were collected on child behaviors (e.g., noncompliance). The first study involved an examination of the change in the teaching skills of mothers of children with autism after their involvement in a three month training program. Two tasks were examined, one that was determined to be "easy" for the child, and another that was determined to be "difficult" for the child. Results showed that, as a group, mothers made significant progress in their overall teaching skills on both tasks, though greater improvements were evidenced in the easy task condition. The second study involved a comparison between data generated from the CATS and data collected by "experts" on an "Expert Rating Scale" (ERS). Results showed highly significant correlations between the expert ratings and data collected by observers using the CATS. The third study examined the differences in teaching skills between experienced teachers and novice undergraduates in a day program for children with severe handicaps in upstate New York. Due to the timing of the data collection, both groups displayed superior teaching skills with no differences in skills across these two groups. This finding of "no difference" was further validated by "experts" using the ERS. In sum, the weight of the data provided evidence for the validity of the CATS. Implications for further use of the code were discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 51-02, Section: B, page: 1000. / Major Professor: Janet A. Kistner. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1989.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_78194 |
| Contributors | Robbins, Frank Richard., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 161 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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