Association for Behavior Analysis International

Training staff to implement effective behavioral interventions for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) requires effective training techniques. This training can occur on a scale from one-on-one, group based, all the way to large scale internship models. The purpose of this symposium is to present two models of staff training. The first presentation describes a common model of staff training (i.e., one-on-one) that used a teaching interaction procedure (TIP) to teach three interventionists the skills to implement a TIP to target the development of social skills for children diagnosed with ASD. The second presentation describes a comprehensive internship program designed to train therapists on the historical, conceptual, and theoretical underpinnings of our field as it applies to the behavioral treatment of ASD as well as the direct implementation a comprehensive behavioral intervention for children diagnosed with ASD. Both presentations will be discussed with respect to their strengths as well as future directions.

Those in charge of training staff on providing behavioral interventions for individuals diagnosed with ASD including, but not limited to, BCBAs and BCaBAs.

The teaching interaction procedure (TIP) is an evidence based procedure that has been utilized for the development of social skills. The TIP consists of labeling the targeted skill, providing a meaningful rationale for the importance of the skill, describing the steps of the targeted skill, modeling how the skill, and providing feedback throughout the TIP. Although the TIP has been used to teach a variety of social skills for children and adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and/or other social and behavioral disorders, its use has not been evaluated to train staff. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of a TIP to teach three interventionists the skills to implement a TIP to target the development of social skills for children diagnosed with ASD. The results of a multiple baseline design showed the TIP was effective at teaching all three interventionists how to implement a TIP with children diagnosed with ASD.

The essential skills required for a behavior analyst to function as a scientist-practitioner within autism intervention are vast. As a result, many university programs, training institutes, and certifications have been developed to engender, maintain, and assess the skills required to be effective practitioners. While these systems are effective in establishing minimum competencies, the development and refinement of the skills required by the scientist-practitioner should continue after achieving these milestones (e.g., graduating, certification). One way to continue expanding and developing these skills is through behavior analytic internships. The purpose of this presentation is to provide a description of the development of an internship for autism interventionists. The internship was designed to develop/extend behavior analytic conceptual knowledge as well as develop/extend clinical skills (i.e., direct intervention). Lessons learned with the first cohort, changes made to the second cohort, and future directions with respect to research and refinements to the internship will be discussed.