Behavior Skills Training with Zoological Staff to Increase Killer Whale Attending Behavior
BST quickly makes any adult run DTT with high fidelity and learner attention, even across species.
01Research in Context
What this study did
MacKellar et al. (2023) trained zoo workers to run discrete-trial sessions with killer whales.
The team used a three-step BST plan: explain, show, and practice with feedback.
They watched how closely staff followed the DTT steps and how much the whales paid attention.
What they found
After BST, staff hit every step of DTT almost every time.
The two whales looked at and stayed with their trainers far more often during sessions.
How this fits with other research
Kleinert et al. (2007) got the same result with parents of children with autism. Parents learned DTT through BST and kept using it on new skills without extra coaching.
Fanning Tacoaman et al. (2024) used a similar BST package to teach techs to pair with kids. Fidelity rose and stayed high for four weeks.
Dai et al. (2025) pushed the idea further. They moved DTT from hospital to home and saw bigger child gains and less parent stress. All four studies show BST turns any adult into a solid DTT teacher, whether the learner is a child or a 6,000-pound whale.
Why it matters
You can copy the zoo plan in your clinic tomorrow. Pick one skill, script the steps, and run a quick explain-model-practice loop with staff or parents. Track fidelity for one session. When adults nail the steps, client attending usually jumps with them.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Film yourself doing a five-trial DTT sequence, then have your trainee rehearse with you and give live feedback until every step is correct.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Attending is a requisite behavior for interactions between animals in zoological care and their care specialist (trainers). Head-dropping behavior (HDB) is incompatible with attending and was observed with two killer whales during whale–trainer interactions (WTI). Initial observations also noted inconsistencies in the trainers’ application of shaping procedures during WTI. A three-part plan was developed to address trainers procedural fidelity, increase whale attending during WTI, and program for the behavioral generalization and maintenance of the whale–trainer dyads (dyad). First, behavior skills training (BST) was used to instruct trainers on discrete trial training (DTT). Second, the trainers’ applied their acquired skill of DTT, targeting attending behavior, with their whale during WTI. Third, behavioral generalization was programed by switching the dyad pairs in an additional DTT generalization phase. The findings demonstrated a strong positive correlation between trainer DTT fidelity and whale attending. Finally, the results suggest that future assessments of behavioral management programs with zoological trainers and animals are warranted.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s40617-022-00719-3