Towards the development of a curriculum to train behavior analysts to provide services via telehealth

Neely and team built a short telehealth curriculum to teach BCBAs how to run parent-training sessions online. They used behavioral skills training: explain, model, practice, and feedback. Four BCBAs took the course and then tried it with real families over Zoom.

Every BCBA hit a large share fidelity within four practice rounds. When they met a brand-new family, the skills still looked perfect. Almost one year later, the BCBAs kept scoring near a large share without extra help.

Slane et al. (2021) looked at twenty earlier BST studies and found the same pattern: brief BST lifts fidelity for teachers and other helpers. Neely’s data add BCBAs and telehealth to that list.

Shawler et al. (2021) and DeFriedman (2021) both ran telehealth BST with different adults—high-school teachers and expectant parents—and still saw big, fast gains. The new study mirrors their speed and size, showing the method works across jobs and content.

Eid et al. (2017) taught moms to run DTT in person. Neely keeps the BST bones but moves the whole process online and trains BCBAs to coach parents instead of coaching parents directly. The jump from face-to-face to screen does not weaken the effect.

You can now train a BCBA to deliver smooth telehealth parent training in under four short meetings. No travel, no long workshops, and the skill sticks for months. If your waitlist is long or families live far away, package your parent-training steps into a quick BST sequence and start Zoom sessions next week.