The effects of behavioral skills training on instructor and learner behavior across responses and skill sets.
Train staff with BST on one ABA procedure and you get accurate teaching plus a jump in learner correct responses that spreads to new programs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team used Behavioral Skills Training to teach staff three ABA teaching routines.
They watched instructors run the steps, then practiced with feedback until they hit mastery.
Learners with developmental delays served as the students during these training sessions.
What they found
After BST, staff ran all three procedures with high accuracy.
The same learners also started giving more correct answers, even when the targets were brand-new.
Skills transferred to untaught programs without extra training.
How this fits with other research
Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2019) extends this work to play-based teaching and saw the same generalization to new kids.
Hillman et al. (2021) flips the script, showing adults with autism can also master DTT through BST and keep the skill for weeks.
McGeown et al. (2013) seems to contradict by saying computer training is weaker, but they compared it head-to-head with live BST only on DTT; the 2014 study shows the wider payoff when you train multiple procedures live.
Campanaro et al. (2023) later proves a short computer module can still hit high fidelity, updating the toolbox rather than replacing live BST.
Why it matters
You can train one teaching skill and watch the benefits ripple across programs and learners.
Use BST when you need rock-solid staff performance and want learner gains to follow.
Pick computer modules for quick scale-up, but add rehearsal and feedback when generalization really counts.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
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.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.11.006