Stronger Together: The Application of Behavior Analysis to Foster Family-Professional Collaboration is the kind of topic that looks straightforward until it collides with the speed, ambiguity, and competing demands of joint consultation, shared care planning, school-team communication, and interdisciplinary handoffs. In Stronger Together: The Application of Behavior Analysis to Foster Family-Professional Collaboration, for this course, the practical stakes show up in clearer roles, fewer duplicated efforts, and better coordinated intervention, not in abstract discussion alone.
Provider: BehaviorLive — via BABAT
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Join Free →Families have important insights about their children and their participation in behavior-analytic treatment, and IEP development is essential for their child's success. Ideally, partnering with families would include the use of family-centered practices as those have been shown to empower families (Madsen, 2009). Research has also demonstrated that family-centered practices are the best practices in working with families to create collaboration between families and professionals (Hardin et al., 2014). Behavior analytic technology has also been used with families such as Behavior Skills Training to teach new skills like intervention skills to parents (Harriage et al., 2016; Himle et al., 2004). During this workshop, we will discuss three main topics: school/professional collaboration with families and how to incorporate family-centered practices, social validity, and the use of behavior skills training (BST) in family-centered practices. Then, we will briefly present two recent studies that explored ways behavior analysis could be used with families to support their confidence and competence to advocate for their children and to implement interventions to teach safety skills to their children. The first study explored the use of a BST coaching intervention to teach families new advocacy skill(s) to empower them at their child's IEP meeting. Research on advocacy and family parent participation has suggested the need for further work on family parent training to develop their advocacy skills (Duquette et al., 2011; Trainor, 2010). Families described their advocacy work as challenging, time-consuming, and tiring as well as rewarding since their advocacy work benefited their child (Boshoff et al., 2016; Duquette et al., 2011). Families felt that if they did not advocate for their children, no one else would (Duquette et al., 2011). Additionally, families can build and practice advocacy skills to increase parent participation and voice in IEP meetings (Besnoy et al., 2015). In this study, post-intervention interviews were used to uncover participants' perceptions of those skills and how the coaching impacted the family-professional partnership in subsequent meetings with school staff. Results showed this intervention was effective in teaching families new advocacy skills and the new skills shifted or changed the meeting, however, the new skills did not solve all of the issues present at the meeting. The second study investigated families' perceptions of a lockdown drill intervention utilizing BST and other evidence-based practices and their ratings on the social validity of the proposed intervention. Research on social validity from families has shown how their input on the goals, procedures, and outcomes of an intervention can impact service delivery (Turan & Meadan, 2011; Wolf, 1978). Involving families in intervention research through social validity studies often leads to a consensus on approaches and increased acceptability of children's goals and intervention procedures. This collaboration leads to interventions with improved fidelity by educational professionals, children's acquisition of outcomes, and carryover of strategies across settings (Kaufman et al., 2013; Robinson, 2011). The use of BST in both studies will be discussed with recommendations for further advocacy skills for children that could be targeted using BST, such as other emergency drills or medical situations. For adults, BST could be used to improve relationships with school staff or to teach parents how to use advocacy skills in medical situations with their children. Finally, there will also be time for a question and answer session related to collaborating with families, family-centered practices, BST, and advocacy.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
Dr. Melissa Jackson has been teaching in higher education for 10 years and has worked in schools, homes, and communities across New York City for over 17 years. She is passionate about working with young children with special needs, their families, and the professionals who collaborate with them. Melissa began her career as a teacher assistant and has taken on roles as a lead teacher, Program Director, and Director of Faculty Development in both public and private schools. Additionally, Melissa has served as a supervisor for early intervention providers and special educators in all five boroughs.
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
279 research articles with practitioner takeaways
256 research articles with practitioner takeaways
252 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.