Behavioral skills training to increase interview skills of adolescent males in a juvenile residential treatment facility

Edgemon et al. (2020) worked with seven teen boys in a juvenile detention home. The team used Behavioral Skills Training to teach job-interview skills. They added extra picture and voice prompts when the basic package stalled.

The study ran a multiple-baseline design across participants. Staff gave instructions, modeled answers, let teens practice, and gave immediate feedback.

All seven youths learned to give better answers in mock interviews. Four teens mastered the skills with standard BST. Three needed the added prompts to reach the same level.

Skills held up when new adults asked the questions in new rooms.

The result lines up with Bacon-Prue et al. (1980) and Varley et al. (1980), the first studies to use BST for interview skills. Those early papers also saw quick gains with instructions, modeling, and rehearsal, showing the core package has worked for over 40 years.

Slane et al. (2021) reviewed 20 later BST training studies. Every paper that taught staff or teachers to run interventions also hit high fidelity. Together, the reviews and the new study show BST teaches both the worker and the client.

Kahng et al. (2023) and Simmons et al. (2024) moved the same package online. They got positive results with adults with autism and college students doing Zoom interviews. The method travels across settings, ages, and screens.

If you work with teens who have court involvement, you now have a ready-made script. Run BST in your group room. Start with the classic four-step loop. If a youth plateaus, drop in picture cues or whispered prompts instead of abandoning the package. The study gives you permission to tweak rather than quit.