Association for Behavior Analysis International

Despite studies demonstrating that predictable activity schedules improves challenging behavioural among developmentally disabled children under experimental conditions, very little is known about the level of consistency with which residential staff provide daily activity schedules (DAS) in naturalistic adult group home settings and how to improve such consistency. Four years of research will be summarized. Study 1 of 6 group home settings servicing 35 adults with acquired brain injuries found, using six 2-week probes over three years, that written DASs were implemented on average only 37% of the time. A second intervention study in two of the group homes over a 12 month period found that DAS implementation could be substantially improved to 80% or higher with a 47% reduction in group home negative behavioural incidents with a DAS training program that focused on supervisor training in on-the-floor DAS supervision. In addition, the positive preventative components of Behaviour Support Plans were implemented significantly more consistently than in 5 comparison group homes which had not received DAS training. Study 3 demonstrated that DAS training conducted for 4 different agencies servicing adults with developmental disabilities improved quality and implementation of DASs, and quality of life. Implications for quality of care will be discussed.

Intensive Behavior Intervention (IBI) is used in the treatment of individuals with Pervasive Developmental Disorder and other disabilities. Training individuals to implement specific IBI programs have often utilized multi-component models consisting of written and verbal training materials, modeling, and feedback. The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of a multi-component staff training model that incorporates a self-evaluation phase to increase and maintain staff performance in implementing an IBI program. Increase in performance was demonstrated across all three therapists. This study extrapolated several key focuses from previous studies (e.g., delivering proper instructions, reinforcement, prompting, pace of instructions, behaviors strategies, etc.); Therefore, multi-component staff training model was effective in increasing overall implementation of ABA teaching principles, as opposed to only one specific technique.