Virtual Behavioral Skills Training for Parents: Generalization of Parent Behavior and Child Learning

Parent training is a critical component of behaviorally based intervention systems, such as applied behavior analysis (ABA). Although the benefits of parent education and training are well-documented, few studies have examined the effects on child learning or identified the effects of parent interventions on different degrees of generalization for parent behavior. We report the effects of a parent training intervention modeled after behavioral skills training (BST), in which parents were taught to implement behavioral intervention strategies, including discrete trial training, in the home to teach their child a new academic skill. All parents implemented the strategies with fidelity and reported positive changes in their interactions with their child in the home. All children learned the targeted academic skills, their behavior generalized to the classroom setting, and they maintained the skills 2 weeks following the intervention. However, we also found differential generalization based on the similarity of the taught and untaught objectives, and we did not observe generalization of changes to parent–child interactions in noninstructional settings. Results are discussed as they relate to planning for broader generalization to create effective methods of parent behavior change which lead to lasting and widespread socially significant change. This is the first studies to examine generalization effects across both parent and child behavior following BST parent training, and the first to investigate whether BST parent training has more distal generalization effects.