Individualized Parent-Mediated Behavioral Treatment for Challenging Behavior: A Program Description.
Teaching parents to run a quick FA and match the treatment to the function works for most families at home.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with 41 families who had kids with autism, intellectual disability, or other delays.
Each family got one-on-one coaching in their home.
Parents learned how to run a quick functional analysis and then build a plan that matched the reason for the behavior.
What they found
Three out of four families hit their personal goals.
Parents said their child’s tough behavior dropped and their own stress went down too.
No numbers were given, but the gains were big enough that families noticed day-to-day.
How this fits with other research
Spackman et al. (2025) and Schieltz et al. (2022) show the same idea can work over video chat.
They got a large share or bigger drops in behavior, so the in-person model in Perry et al. (2024) may not be needed for success.
Davis et al. (2023) used a trial-based FA instead of the full version, yet parents still cut problem behavior.
This tells us the key part is coaching, not the exact FA style or meeting face-to-face.
Why it matters
If you coach parents to test why the behavior happens and pick a fix that fits, most kids improve.
You can start tomorrow by teaching one parent a brief FA and a simple FCT plan during your next visit.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Past research suggests behavioral treatments are effective for challenging behavior in children and young adults with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, access to these services can be limited and require substantial resources. To address this issue, the current study provides a programmatic description of an individualized parent-mediated service model targeting moderate challenging behavior. In the program, therapists coached parents to implement functional analyses and individualized function-based treatment packages. Forty-one families of children and young adults with neurodevelopmental disorders participated. Most clients (75.6%) met all admission treatment goals and parents reported significant decreases in frequency and severity of challenging behaviors at discharge. Parents also reported less stress at discharge. Outcomes of the study suggest this parent-mediated treatment model is a viable option to treating moderate challenging behavior in children and young adults with intellectual and developmental disorders.
Behavior modification, 2024 · doi:10.1177/01454455231201957