The effects of behavioral skills training on instructor and learner behavior across responses and skill sets

• We trained classroom staff to implement discrete trial teaching, incidental teaching and activity schedules.
• We used behavioral skills training.
• Staff acquired skills rapidly and generalized them to non-training situations.
• Children with autism often befitted in terms of learning correct responses and/or reductions in challenging behavior.

Behavioral skills training (BST) is effective to train staff to provide intervention to people with developmental disabilities. The purpose of this study was to assess whether: (a) prior studies demonstrating the effectiveness of BST could be systematically replicated while teaching multiple teaching instructors to implement discrete trial teaching, incidental teaching and activity schedules; (b) instructional skills that staff acquired during training on one response generalized to a variety of instructional programs, (c) positive changes in staff performance produced positive behavior change in learners; and (d) positive changes in learner behavior generalized to novel programs. BST resulted in positive behavior change across staff, learners, instructional programs, and various teaching skills. Further, staff generalized teaching skills to novel responses and learners displayed increases in correct responding for all three instructional procedures. Social validity data indicated they these staff training procedures were highly acceptable and effective. Thus, BST is an effective and acceptable staff training procedure.