POWER: A Caregiver Implemented Mand Training Intervention
A five-minute POWER video lets parents run echoic-prompt mand trials at home without live help.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McCammon et al. (2022) asked if a five-minute video could teach parents to run mand trials at home.
They filmed a mom using five steps: Play, Offer, Wait, Encourage, Reinforce.
Three families watched the clip on their own, then tried the steps with their autistic preschoolers.
What they found
Every parent hit 90 % fidelity after one viewing.
Kids used a few more spoken requests, though gains were small.
Total training time: five minutes. No live coach needed.
How this fits with other research
Ganz et al. (2009) also had parents teach mands, but with PECS pictures and live coaching. POWER shows video alone can work for spoken requests.
Howard et al. (2023) used Zoom coaching to teach AAC mands to girls with Rett. POWER keeps the caregiver idea but drops the live call.
Ferguson et al. (2022) ran live telehealth parent training and saw variable child gains. POWER’s self-guided clip gives similar modest child gains with zero meeting time.
Ruppel et al. (2023) added Zoom feedback after slides to nail preference-assessment fidelity. POWER skips feedback yet still reaches mastery, a lighter lift for busy families.
Why it matters
You can email the POWER clip tonight and parents start mand trials tomorrow. No scheduling headaches, no extra staff hours. Use it as first-step homework while you plan richer language goals.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The development of a vocal mand repertoire is often delayed or deficient in children with an autism spectrum disorder. Utilizing caregivers as behavior change agents to address this core deficit may be advantageous as more learning opportunities can be incorporated in daily routines. A plethora of literature exists on teaching caregivers to promote communication with their children; however, many of these studies use behavioral skills training that can be resource-intensive. This study evaluated the effectiveness of video modeling with voice-over and on-screen text, without researcher mediation, as an alternative to behavioral skills training for teaching caregivers to teach vocal mands to their 2- to 5-year-old children with an autism spectrum disorder. The video model described mand training with an echoic prompt (Greer & Ross, 2008; Kodak & Clements, 2009), using a mnemonic (POWER: Play, Offer, Wait, Encourage, and Reinforce). Results of our nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across three dyads indicates that video modeling was effective in increasing all three caregivers’ mand training fidelity, and this correlated to small increases in independent mands with some of the child participants when training occurred less than 1 hr per week. We discuss implications for practice and areas for future research.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40617-021-00620-5