Teaching a parent to train a spouse in child management techniques.
Train one parent and have them train the other: a mother taught her husband child-management skills that stuck and generalized to additional routines.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers taught one parent how to teach dressing skills to a child with developmental delay. Then they asked that parent to train her spouse at home. They tracked how well each parent used the teaching steps across different dressing routines.
The team used a multiple-baseline design. They measured parent accuracy and child independence during pants, shirt, and sock routines.
What they found
The mother quickly learned the clinic-taught dressing steps. She then trained her husband, and his accuracy rose too. Both parents kept using the skills on new, untaught routines.
The child dressed himself more often and played alone longer while the parents worked together.
How this fits with other research
Farrant et al. (1998) built on this idea by adding spouse-to-spouse feedback. They moved training fully into the home and still saw gains, showing the method can travel beyond the clinic.
Matson et al. (2009) swapped parents for day-hab staff. Peer-to-peer behavioral skills training lifted positive staff interactions with adults who have dual diagnoses. The same train-one-to-train-another logic works across ages and settings.
Shin et al. (2021) used the same BST package—instructions, model, practice, feedback—with parents of children with developmental delay. Both studies show brief BST creates lasting parent skills, even when the target shifts from dressing to discrete-trial teaching.
Why it matters
You can cut travel time and clinic hours. Train one motivated parent, then ask that parent to coach the partner. Use the same BST steps you already know: show the skill, let them practice, give feedback. Check both parents on new routines to be sure skills generalize. This cascade keeps the whole team on the same page without extra visits.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study analyzed several aspects of the training of a mother and father in child management techniques for use with their 6-year-old severely developmentally delayed son. The mother received clinic training in procedures for increasing her son's independent dressing skills; subsequently, she was asked to teach the same procedures to her husband with no assistance from the trainer. For both parents, procedures were introduced sequentially across two components of parent behavior in a multiple baseline design. Examinations were made of (a) the effectiveness of initial child management training on the mother's behaviors, (b) her ability to teach the same techniques to her husband independently, (c) the generalization of both parents' skills from the training setting (a dressing task) to two untrained activities (eating and toy use), and (d) the impact of training on the child's behavior. Results showed that the mother learned to implement the trained procedures and successfully communicated them to her husband, as evidenced by substantial positive changes in both parents' behaviors after being introduced to the child management skills. Both parents showed some generalization to the untrained activities, and their written comments following training indicated they understood the procedures. Clear-cut improvements were observed in the child's attending and independent performance of dressing and toy use skills concurrent with parent training. A 2-year follow-up report indicated that both parents retained their knowledge of skills taught, continued to use the procedures, and rated the training as very helpful in teaching the child self-help skills.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1981 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1981.14-193