The effects of errorless compliance training on children in home and school settings
Parents using errorless compliance training at home can boost kids’ compliance at school too.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three families learned errorless compliance training (ECT) at home. A coach showed parents how to give easy requests first, then slowly make them harder.
No one was told the child’s diagnosis. The team just watched if the child did what parents asked. They tracked the same skills later at school.
What they found
Every child obeyed more at home after ECT. The big news: each kid also obeyed more at school, even though teachers never got the training.
Parent-delivered ECT created strong, generalized compliance gains across both settings.
How this fits with other research
Glover et al. (1976) saw the opposite. Parents boosted child talking at home, but school gains vanished. The difference: ECT uses tiny, sure-steps instead of wide jumps.
Lindgren et al. (2020) and Anonymous (2024) later topped these results. Telehealth FCT cut problem behavior by 98% and matched face-to-face parent training. Their larger, faster drops update the 2018 in-home numbers.
Tonnsen et al. (2016) extends the story. They added a quick interview-based FA before treatment. Both papers show parents and teachers can run plans that travel across settings.
Why it matters
You now have a low-tech option. Teach parents ECT at the kitchen table and watch compliance rise in class without extra teacher time. If you need bigger, quicker change, pair the steps with telehealth FCT shown in later studies. Either way, start with easy requests and build up — the child wins at home and school.
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Have the parent give five sure-thing requests before breakfast, then add one slightly harder request each day.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Errorless compliance training (ECT) is a procedure used to lessen disruptive behavior using a gradual and noncoercive approach. In this study, parents of three school‐aged children who demonstrated high levels of disruptive behavior in the home and the classroom were trained on the ECT procedure. ECT consisted of training in effective instruction delivery and delivery of requests in a hierarchal manner. ECT sessions took place in the home, with parents delivering requests to participating children. Baseline data were used to arrange requests into grouped levels, ranging from Level 1 (requests of which individual is typically compliant) to Level 4 (requests in which individual is typically noncompliant). Using the ECT procedure, request levels were faded over time in a gradual fashion to ensure the highest probability of compliance. Effects of ECT were hypothesized to generalize from the home to the school setting. Implementation of ECT resulted in high levels of compliance in both the home and school settings across all participants. Implications and limitations are discussed.
Behavioral Interventions, 2018 · doi:10.1002/bin.1641