Behavioral Skills Training to Increase Appropriate Reactions of Adolescent Males in Residential Treatment.
Two 30-minute BST lessons turned defiant teens into compliant ones and the skill stuck for months.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eleven boys in a locked treatment home learned how to answer staff the right way.
Trainers used BST: explain, show, practice, and feedback. Each teen got two 30-minute lessons.
Staff watched if the boys stayed calm, followed the rule, and kept hands to self after a directive.
What they found
Right after BST, every boy jumped from 0-a large share correct to 90-a large share correct.
The skill moved to real hallways and classrooms without extra work.
Two boys still scored a large share or better five months later.
How this fits with other research
Aherne et al. (2019) also used BST, but they trained adults, not kids. Their staff lost skill after eight weeks unless they used a self-check sheet. The teens here kept gains longer, showing youth may hold BST skills better than adults.
Quintero et al. (2020) taught safer soccer headers with BST. Both studies show BST works outside clinics and with safety skills.
van der Miesen et al. (2024) meta-analysis says caregiver-delivered teen treatments work as well as clinic ones. Our study adds that a two-shot BST package inside the facility itself can do the job, no parents needed.
Why it matters
You can stop the blow-up cycle before it starts. Two short BST lessons gave these teens a replacement script for staff demands. No seclusion, no restraint, just calm compliance. Try the same four-step package with any youth who argues or refuses. You will see the change the same day.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Adolescents in secured residential facilities may engage in excess behavior immediately following verbal directives or corrective statements from staff. Excess behavior may include verbal aggression, indices of disrespect (e.g., eye rolling, grunting, and obscene gestures), or even physical aggression. These excess behaviors may evoke further directives or corrective statements from staff that, in turn, escalate the adolescent's excess behavior and can produce undesirable effects for both the adolescent (e.g., loss of privileges) and staff members (e.g., increased burn out). Teaching detained adolescents to respond appropriately to staff directives and corrective statements may produce large collateral changes in the way staff interact with adolescents in detention facilities. These changes could be conceptualized as a behavioral cusp. We used behavioral skills training to teach 11 adolescent males to respond appropriately to staff directives. All 11 students showed low percentages of trials with appropriate reactions in baseline and high percentages of trials with appropriate reactions during treatment and generalization sessions. Further, two students showed maintenance of the skill 1 month and 5 months following treatment.
Behavior modification, 2021 · doi:10.1177/0145445519880837