The effects of instructions, rehearsal, modeling, and feedback on acquisition and generalization of staff use of discrete trial teaching and student correct responses

A limited number of studies have investigated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on staff acquisition and generalization of discrete trial teaching (DTT) and student behavior. BST was used to improve three staff's use of DTT interactions with four children with autism. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to assess the effects of the intervention on staff and student performance. All three staff acquired DTT skills with one child and one set of teaching programming. Staff also demonstrated improved accuracy in their use of DTT following training sessions and during follow-up sessions with students and programs that were not involved in staff training. Student performance on presented tasks also improved following staff improvement in implementation of DTT. Staff rated the training as very socially valid. This shows that BST may result in generalization of staff performance to novel students and novel teaching tasks. BST was highly effective, efficient, and acceptable.