The effectiveness of staff support: evaluating active support training using a conditional probability approach.
Training staff in Active Support makes their hands-on help more likely to get residents engaged.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught residential staff how to give better help. They called the package Active Support.
Training had three parts: plan fun activities, plan how to help, and practice giving help.
They tracked what happened right after staff helped. Did the resident start or keep doing the task?
What they found
When staff used Active Support, their help was more likely to spark resident engagement.
The boost held steady weeks later. Better help now meant more activity later.
How this fits with other research
McMillan et al. (1999) ran almost the same study one year earlier. They saw more activity too. The 2000 paper just zooms in on the exact moment help turns into action.
Chou et al. (2011) took Active Support to Taiwan. Results were smaller and challenging behavior did not drop. Same tool, new place, softer punch.
Guercio et al. (2025) also worked in group homes, but used staff-chosen prizes to lift data-sheet completion. Both studies show you can move staff behavior in multiple-baseline designs, just with different levers.
Why it matters
You can copy this three-part training next week. Script the activity, script the help, then rehearse. Track if your prompt produces action right away. When the chance of “help turns to doing” rises, you know the training stuck. Keep measuring that moment and you will see if your team stays sharp.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Active Support, a package of procedures which includes activity planning, support planning, and training on providing effective assistance, was introduced in five community residences serving 19 adults with severe mental retardation following a multiple baseline design. Real-time observational data were collected on the level of assistance residents received from staff and their engagement in activity. Active Support was shown in a companion paper (Jones et al., 1999) to increase the levels of assistance residents received and their engagement in activity. Increased assistance was particularly experienced by the behaviorally less able and the disparity in activity between the more and less able was reduced. In the analysis presented here, the effectiveness of assistance was evaluated before and after Active Support training by calculating the likelihood of engagement occurring given the occurrence of assistance. This likelihood was represented by the statistic, Yule's Q. Yule's Q significantly increased following Active Support training, an increase that was maintained at follow-up. The increased effectiveness of assistance was related to other research findings on the relationship between staff: resident interaction patterns and resident behavior.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2000 · doi:10.1016/s0891-4222(00)00040-8