Training psychology interns to teach verbal and non-verbal repertoires in children with autism spectrum disorder
A single BST cycle turns untrained interns into 90 %-accurate instructors for kids with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team trained four psychology interns to teach kids with autism.
Each intern first tried teaching a child while staff scored every step.
Baseline accuracy was below 25 %.
Then interns received a short BST package: clear rules, live demo, practice runs, and instant feedback.
After training, each intern taught the same child again to see if skills stuck.
What they found
All four interns jumped from under 25 % accuracy to over 90 %.
Scores stayed above 90 % when they worked with a real child later.
The whole package took only a few hours to finish.
How this fits with other research
Matos et al. (2021) ran the same BST steps in Brazil and got the same 90 % jump, showing the result travels across languages.
Clayton et al. (2019) proved a 10-minute BST blast can push staff DTT scores to 97 %, so super-short training is not a fluke.
Ampuero et al. (2025) later found that even briefer feedback works for paraeducators, extending the idea that you can trim time without hurting fidelity.
Schaaf et al. (2015) flipped the script and used BST to train adults with ASD to teach kids; they also hit high fidelity, showing BST works for many trainee types.
Why it matters
You can copy this four-step BST when you need new hires or students to run trials correctly.
One short session lifts accuracy from rookie to mastery level and the skill sticks.
Use it during onboarding, in university partnerships, or before letting observers take trial data.
Keep the package intact: tell, show, let them try, then give immediate feedback.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Film a one-minute demo of a trial you want done right, then have the new staff rehearse while you score and correct live.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Behavioral Skills Training (BST) represents an effective and efficient approach to train staff in implementing Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) interventions to learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), with the purpose of reducing undesirable behaviors and establishing more appropriate ones. It comprises the following components: (1) instructions on ABA basic principles, regarding the teaching of behavior targets; (2) modeling, with demonstration of behaviors to be emitted during the teaching; (3) behavioral rehearsal with a confederate; and (4) performance feedback. The goal of the current research was to evaluate the effects of BST training on the establishment of repertoires, in four undergraduate Psychology interns, to teach nonverbal (audiovisual pairing and motor imitation) and verbal (labeling and answering questions) skills to a confederate, who pretended to act like a child with ASD. Thereafter, it was also a goal to assess generalization of the teaching to a real child with ASD. The participants were unfamiliar with ASD and ABA, but the results of the study suggested that BST improved accuracy during the teaching of targets to the confederate. In baseline, the percentage of accuracy per participant were the following: P1 (4.55%); P2 (9.73%); P3 (13.76%); P4 (22.29%). All participants reached criterion when BST, with both immediate and delayed feedback, was implemented. Performance accuracy was above 90% for all. In the end, generalization probes were conducted during the teaching of targets to a real child with ASD, and performance accuracy was also above 90%.
Research, Society and Development, 2020 · doi:10.33448/rsd-v9i7.3928