Parent‐implemented behavioral skills training of social skills
Brief BST turns parents into solid social-skills coaches for their autistic children, and the kids still show the skills a month later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four parents of children with autism learned to teach social skills through short BST sessions.
Each parent watched a demo, practiced with coaching, and got feedback until they hit mastery.
The kids then practiced the same skills with their newly trained parents.
What they found
Every parent reached high accuracy in teaching the skills.
All four children improved their social skills and kept the gains one month later.
How this fits with other research
Hassan et al. (2018) repeated the idea but added in-situ coaching. They saw the same parent mastery, yet kids only used the skills in new places after the extra real-life practice.
LaBrot et al. (2021) moved from one-on-one to group parent classes. A single workshop still lifted parent instructions and child compliance, showing the method scales.
Glugatch et al. (2021) swapped parents for neurotypical siblings. Brief BST turned brothers and sisters into play coaches and boosted shared play at home.
Together the four studies draw a clear line: BST quickly equips family members to teach social skills, but generalization needs extra planning.
Why it matters
You can run parent-BST in a few short meetings and still see child gains that last. Add in-situ practice if you want the skills to travel to parks, stores, or school. Use the same package with siblings or groups when one-on-one time is tight.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Impairment in social skills is a primary feature of Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs). Research indicates that social skills are intimately tied to social development and negative social consequences can persist if specific social behaviors are not acquired. The present study evaluated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on teaching four parents of children with ASDs to be social skills trainers. A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across parent-child dyads was employed and direct observation was used to assess parent and child behaviors Results demonstrated substantial improvement in social skills teaching for all participants for trained and untrained skills. Ancillary measures of child performance indicated improvement in skills as well. High levels of correct teaching responses were maintained at a 1 month follow-up. This study extends current literature on BST while also providing a helpful, low-effort strategy to modify how parents can work with their children to improve their social skills.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2017 · doi:10.1002/jaba.411