Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

Parent training: Acquisition and generalization

of discrete trials teaching skills with parents
of children with autism
Jennifer L. Crockett *, Richard K. Fleming 1, Karla J. Doepke 2,
Jenny S. Stevens
Auburn University, USA
Received 18 July 2005; received in revised form 5 October 2005; accepted 10 October 2005

Abstract
This study examined the effects of an intensive parent training program on the acquisition and
generalization of discrete trial teaching (DTT) procedures with two parents of children with autism. Over
the course of the program, parents applied the DTT procedures to teach four different functional skills to
their children, which allowed for an assessment of ‘‘free’’ and programmed generalization across stimulus
exemplars. Parent training was conducted by the first author utilizing instructions, demonstrations, role-
play, and practice with feedback. Parents’ use of DTT skills and children’s correct and incorrect responding
were measured. A within-subject multiple-baseline across stimulus exemplars (functional skills taught)
design was employed both to demonstrate control of the training program over parents’ correct use of DTT,
and to allow a preliminary investigation of the generalized effects of training to multiple stimulus exemplars.
Results demonstrate initial control of the training program over parent responding, and the extent to which
each parent extended her use of DTT procedures across untrained and topographically different child skills.
The potential for designing more generalizable and thus more cost-effective parent training programs is
discussed.
# 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Parent training; Discrete trials teaching; Autism

* Corresponding author. Present address: Kennedy Krieger Institute, 720 Aliceanna Street, Suite 226, Baltimore,
MD 21202, USA. Tel.: +1 443 923 7481.
E-mail address: crockettj@kennedykrieger.org (J.L. Crockett).
1
Present address: University of Massachusetts Medical School and The Shriver Center, Waltham, MA, USA.
2
Present address: Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA.

0891-4222/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2005.10.003
24 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

Increasingly, parents of children with autism and other developmental disabilities are being
encouraged to become active participants in their children’s education, applying behavioral
intervention at home and as early in the child’s life as possible (Dawson & Osterling, 1997;
National Research Council, 2001). However, research on parent involvement and training has not
kept pace with this recommendation. McConnell (2002) reported that an overwhelming number
of behavioral intervention studies were conducted in classroom settings, with teachers and other
staff providing instruction. McConnell called for research to demonstrate the effectiveness of
treatment delivered in the home and community, and to evaluate procedures for training parents,
siblings and peers in behavioral intervention. Wolery and Garfinkle (2002) drew a similar
conclusion in their review of 72 studies on behavioral intervention, reporting that in only seven
studies was parent involvement even mentioned.
While there has been a relative dearth of research on parent training, investigations to date
both support the potential of parents as intervention agents and point to the need for research on
how training can be better designed to promote generalization. In one of the earliest studies of
parent involvement, Lovaas, Koegel, Simmons, and Long (1973) illustrated the importance of
parents’ role in extending and maintaining the behavioral gains their children had made during
prior behavior therapy. Thirteen children received center-based treatment from behavior
therapists on five classes of behavior: self-stimulation, echolalia, appropriate verbal, social non-
verbal, and appropriate play. All children made similar gains during treatment; however, only the
seven children whose parents received consultative support and training from the therapists
maintained the gains or made further improvements.
Research has also demonstrated that parents can be effective mediators of child behavior
change. For example, structured parent training programs have been effective in teaching parents
to utilize various behavioral procedures and concepts (i.e., prompting, fading, shaping, chaining,
reinforcement, punishment, data collection, generalization and maintenance) in working with
their children with autism (e.g., Anderson, Avery, DiPietro, Edwards, & Christian, 1987; Harris,
1983; Koegel, Glahn, & Nieminen, 1978). Following parenting education and practice with
feedback, improvements were noted in parents use of behavioral skills with their children as well
as accelerated rates of child language development (Harris, 1983). Gains also have been shown to
be sustainable, with reports of correct use of skills as far as 12 months post-training.
Only rarely have the methods used to teach parents skills been compared systematically,
making conclusions regarding the most effective or cost-efficient methods of parent training
difficult. Data from a few studies may provide some insight. Neef (1995), building on earlier
work by Bruder and Bricker (1985), compared parent training by peers (other parents) versus
professional staff. Twenty mothers and six fathers of children with autism in a public elementary
school received training in behavioral treatment, specifically discrete trial training (DTT), with
14 parents assigned to the peer training group and 12 to the professional group. Training in both
groups involved discussion of a child-instruction protocol, trainer modeling, repeated practice,
and praise for correct performance. Parents in both groups acquired the targeted behavioral
treatment skills to an 85% mastery criterion. In addition, parents in both groups maintained their
correct use of the skills at follow-up, 4–6 weeks post training, and most children, across groups,
showed substantial progress (correct trials) relative to baseline. However, parents’ generalization
of treatment skills to their instruction on other child learning objectives was found to be limited in
both groups. Therefore, this study suggests that trainer qualifications may not impact parenting
skill acquisition significantly.
Another aspect of training was examined by Moes and Frea (2002). Specifically, the effects of
parent-delivered functional communication training (FCT) and contextualized FCT, both
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 25

including DTT, on the frequency of children’s (with autism) challenging behavior and
communication were investigated. The term ‘‘contextualized’’ referred to an assessment step that
isolated child-specific times and situations in which challenging behaviors were likely to occur in
the home and community. Parents were trained to 80% mastery via in vivo trainer modeling and
repeated practice with feedback. They learned to prepare the environment at critical times to
promote functional child communication, and to apply prompts and reinforcement in DTT
fashion. Contextualized FCT was found to be more effective, and was reported by parents to be
more sustainable, suggesting a role for increased attention to the stimulus conditions under which
parent training is conducted.
Behavioral parent training programs are designed to teach parents to change their own
behavior in very specific ways in order to foster a change in their children’s behavior (Kaiser &
Fox, 1986). More specifically, the foremost goal for behavioral parent training programs is to
provide parents with an effective way of teaching their children the many skills they will need to
function optimally in their daily environments. Parent training research has its strengths and
limitations. Most of the studies reviewed above used very similar target skills for parent training,
and operational definitions were very close. This is not surprising, considering the consistencies
found in the replicative history of research on the efficacy of DTT with children with autism. As a
result, the validity of DTT as an early behavioral treatment method has been established, and
researchers have begun a similar replicative history of research in parent training. DTT typically
consists of an instructor (e.g., parent) delivering a command to begin a trial, providing an
appropriate consequence for the child’s response (or lack of response), and interposing an
intertrial interval to separate the consequence of one trial from the command of the next (Koegel,
Russo, & Rincover, 1977). Although DTT is artificial in the sense that it is almost entirely adult-
initiated, it provides a structured learning environment that is particularly important in the early
stages of teaching children with autism (Smith, Donahoe, & Davis, 2001).
In much of the parent training research, repeated measurement of parent skills was used, as
were within-subjects designs. Repeated measurement allows for a careful evaluation of the
course of skill acquisition among subjects. Training is a dynamic process (Baldwin & Ford,
1988), and repeated measurement allows for potentially fruitful analyses, including an
assessment of generalization (Oliver & Fleming, 1997).
Although parents are able to acquire the skills necessary to teach their children, generalization
has been noted as a problem (Baker, 1989). That is, when parents are trained to address specific
child learning objectives, they often fail to generalize this training to other child behaviors,
representing a lack of stimulus generalization (Koegel et al., 1978). Stimulus generalization
occurs when a response that has been trained to occur under one stimulus condition occurs under
a similar but novel stimulus condition (Milan, 1990). Stimulus generalization can occur across
different settings, individuals, or tasks being taught. If a child who learns to plant seeds in the
garden at school also plants seeds outside of her house, the planting response can be said to have
generalized across settings. Applied to parents, if a father learns to apply a procedure for teaching
a specific skill to his child, and then applies this same teaching procedure to similar but new child
skills, his teaching can be said to have generalized across child skills.
‘‘Training sufficient exemplars’’ is one conceptual approach suggested by Stokes and Baer
(1977) to program generalization to untrained conditions by providing an adequate number of
examples of such conditions during training. For example, if training a parent to teach his or her
child to discriminate colors is effective only for that skill, perhaps applying more exemplars (e.g.,
training to teach color and size discrimination) during training will promote generalization to
other child skills. Stokes, Baer, and Jackson (1974) trained children with mental retardation to
26 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

increase their greeting responses to staff members. Using just one therapist during training, they
found that the children did not generalize their greeting responses to other therapists. However,
by adding another therapist during training, the children generalized their greeting responses to
other staff members, even those not associated with training. Although what qualifies as a
sufficient number of exemplars will likely differ across individuals and situations, the Stokes
et al. (1974) findings suggest that as little as two stimulus exemplars can be sufficient to produce
generalization.
Research indicates that the most efficient generalization occurs within the same stimulus class
represented in training (Stokes & Osnes, 1989). For example, training parents to teach two
exemplars of the behavior of making discriminations (color and size discriminations) might be
sufficient to produce generalization to shape discrimination. However, generalization would not be
expected to be as high for a dissimilar skill such as expressive language. Because critical child
competencies vary widely in their stimulus characteristics and response requirements, a
demonstration of generalization across dissimilar, functional tasks would greatly improve the
external validity of this procedure as a way for parents to teach children with multiple skill deficits.
In sum, involving parents as partners in treatment, formalized through the use of systematic
parent training programs, represents a natural progression in the development of optimally
effective treatment programs for children with developmental disabilities (Harris, 1983). While
behavioral parent training programs to date appear to be equally as effective as behavioral
personnel training programs in developmental disabilities (Reid & Parsons, 1995), more research
is needed, including studies on procedures to enhance generalization and overall cost
effectiveness. This preliminary study analyzed the extent to which training parents in the use of
DTT procedures, with training applied sequentially to one or more (as required) child skills
(stimulus exemplars), was sufficient to produce generalization of correct parent teaching to
untrained child skills.

1. Methods

1.1. Participants and setting

Participants were two mothers of children with autism; Melissa had two children, Jina had one
child. Both mothers were married to their children’s biological father and described themselves
as ‘‘homemakers’’. Both were high school graduates, and had received some higher education.
Melissa’s son, Jason, was 4 years old and diagnosed with autism and severe mental retardation.
Jina’s son, Nevin, was 4 years old and diagnosed with autism. Both boys had documented deficits
in language/communication and motor skills. Neither of the mothers had previously participated
in any formal parent training programs, nor had they received any training in applied behavior
analysis. All training and teaching sessions were held in a 13.5 in.  8 in. research room,
equipped with teaching materials (e.g., books, blocks, paper and pencil), a small table, three
chairs (for the parent, child, and trainer, respectively), age-appropriate toys, a video-recorder, a
television, and a VCR.

1.2. Dependent variables

1.2.1. Parent behavior

The behaviors targeted for parent training were components of a DTT procedure adapted from
previous research by Koegel et al. (1977) and Anderson et al. (1987). The four component
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 27

behaviors – presenting antecedents, delivering consequences, conducting intertrial intervals, and

recording behavior – were defined as follows.
Presenting antecedents was defined as instructing or asking the child, only once, to perform a
behavior. The instruction or question had to be presented clearly, and only while the child was
attending. Delivering consequences was defined as either (a) providing the child with a reward
within 3 s of a correct response or (b) stating the word ‘‘No’’ within 3 s of an incorrect response.
Rewards were determined by having the parent complete a reinforcer checklist prior to training.
Each consequence, whether a reward or the word ‘‘No’’, needed to be given unambiguously to be
scored as correct. That is, rewards were to be given in association with smiles and in enthusiastic
tones; the word ‘‘No’’ was to be given in a clear, sharp tone. One of the consequences was to be
provided after each child response. Conducting intertrial intervals was defined as waiting for a
period of 2–10 s following the delivery of a consequence, and before providing a new antecedent
to begin the next trial. Recording the child’s behavior referred to scoring the child’s responses to
antecedents accurately on a data sheet following each trial.

1.2.2. Child behavior

In an attempt to determine if the parents’ use of the DTT procedure produced desired increases
in their children’s behavior, children’s responses were scored as correct, incorrect or prompted.
Correct responses were defined as the child behaving in a manner consistent with the antecedent-
answering questions correctly or following instructions accurately. Incorrect responses were
defined as the child behaving in a manner inconsistent with the antecedent-answering questions
incorrectly, not following instructions accurately, or not responding at all. Prompted responses
were defined as the child requiring some additional assistance in the form of gestural, verbal, and/
or physical prompts from the parent to respond to the antecedent.

1.3. Observation and measurement system

During the first 80 min of each 120-min session, the parents participated in trainer-led
instruction, described later in the ‘‘Parent Training’’ section. During the last 40 min of each
session, the parents were videotaped independently teaching their children, but still in the
presence of the trainer. A video recorder, set up prior to each session, was activated at the
beginning of each parent teaching session and recorded the entire 40 min session. During this
time, the parents taught their children each of the four child skills (discussed later). The trainer
informed the parent when she had completed 25 trials for a child skill so that she could begin the
next skill. A trial began when the parent presented an antecedent (instruction or question) and
ended when the parent presented the next antecedent. Each 25-trial session lasted approximately
10 min. The trainer (first author), and a research assistant who had been previously trained by the
first author, independently scored each videotape. They scored all trials of the four target child
skills for each session, and always did so prior to the next parent training session. For each trial,
the observers scored the parent’s use of antecedents as correct, incorrect, or non-applicable, and
consequences, intertrial intervals, and recording as correct or incorrect. They also recorded
whether the child’s behavior was correct, incorrect, or prompted. Interobserver agreement (IOA)
was checked on 100% of trials across all subjects, phases, parent behaviors, and child behaviors.
An agreement was determined if both observers scored a trial in exactly the same way, as correct,
incorrect, or non-applicable. Otherwise, the trial was scored as a disagreement. IOA scores for
each parent and child behavior were calculated by dividing the number of agreements by the
number of agreements plus disagreements and multiplying by 100. Mean IOA, with range in
28 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

parentheses, was 90% (40–100%) for antecedents, 92% (75–100%) for consequences, 86% (36–
100%) for intertrial intervals, 96% (80–100%) for recording child’s behavior, and 90% (60–
100%) for child behavior.

1.4. Procedures

1.4.1. Selection of child skills

Prior to beginning the study, each parent met with the trainer to select the skills they would
attempt to teach their child. One skill class, attending, was taught by all parents, since possessing
attending skills is a prerequisite for acquiring more complex skills. Three other skill classes were
selected, in coordination with the parent, based subjectively on the child’s highest priority needs
in the areas of language/communication and motor skills development.

1.4.2. Baseline
Following the selection of child skill classes, baseline measurement of the parents’ use of the
DTT procedure for each child skill was initiated. Parents were reminded that they would be
trained to teach their children using a DTT procedure and then asked to teach the first skill to their
child as best they could. They were informed that when enough information had been gathered, they
would be instructed to begin teaching a second skill. If a parent asked for any guidance during the
baseline measurement, or asked what she was supposed to do, the trainer informed her that she
should rely on her current skills, and then encouraged her to proceed without any further assistance.

1.4.3. Parent training

Following baseline, the first author provided training individually to each parent. Each parent
attended between six and nine 2-h weekly training sessions. The number of sessions varied as a
function of differences in the time it took for each parent to master the DTT procedures. Each
parent was first trained to apply the DTT procedure in the context of teaching attending with her
child. Using procedures similar to Koegel et al. (1978), the trainer began with a 20-min lecture
describing definitions and examples of antecedents, consequences, intertrial intervals, and
behavioral recording behavior as they are commonly used in DTT. Next, the trainer presented a
videotape of herself demonstrating correct and incorrect use of DTT procedures while teaching
attending skills to an 11-year-old male actor. As the parent viewed the videotape, the trainer
asked her to attempt to (a) identify each trial as correct or incorrect, and (b) explain why each was
correct or incorrect. The parent then participated in a role-playing exercise with the trainer, in
which the parent alternated between the role of parent and child. The trainer provided feedback in
the form of statements about correct and incorrect use of the DTT procedures, and suggestions for
how to correct problems. For example, the trainer might have said, ‘‘Your antecedents are very
clear, but your delivery of the consequences needs to be more immediate. Try to get them within
3 s of your child’s response’’. Once the parent had demonstrated initial acquisition of the
procedure, by correctly using the procedure for four consecutive trials, the parent was asked to
apply the procedure directly with her child while teaching attending. The trainer continued to
provide feedback until the parent again demonstrated four consecutive correct trials. After
meeting this criterion, parents were videotaped teaching the four skills to their child. These
videotapes were used for subsequent training (see below) and data collection purposes. The
trainer did not provide any feedback during the videotaping.
Utilizing analyses of the data collected during the previous session, the trainer repeated the
parent training procedure in subsequent sessions, with the exception of the initial 20 min lecture
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 29

and the videotaped demonstration, which was replaced with a videotaped segment from each
parent’s previous session. In this new session, the trainer focused the training on the one child
skill for which the parent showed the lowest rate of correct use of the DTT skills. That is, once the
parent successfully applied the DTT procedure to attending skills, they were provided a
replication of the training program with a second child skill for which they were not using DTT at
the same level. Each subsequent session proceeded in the same manner. The parent was trained to
use the DTT procedure with the new child skill, while continuing to apply her teaching to
the other skills. Parents were not required or instructed to implement the procedure outside of
these sessions, although both parents indicated that they were ‘‘practicing’’ at home with various
child-tasks.

1.5. Experimental design

The design of the experiment was a variation of a multiple baseline across child skills in which
the sequence of the child skills to which training would be applied was not predetermined, but
selected based on parent responses during the preceding observation. Training proceeded
sequentially until each child skill area, or stimulus exemplar, had been trained directly, unless the
parent’s teaching improved such that training on the untrained child skills was no longer
warranted.

1.6. Data analysis

Data on both the parents’ teaching and the children’s responses were recorded for each of the
25 trials. Parents’ application of DTT procedures was quantified as the percentage of correct
responding per trial. For an entire trial to be scored as correct, the parent would have to have met
each criterion for each component of the DTT procedure. Data on the children’s performance were
quantified as the percentage of correct, incorrect, and prompted responses they demonstrated
during the entire session. Parents and child data were graphed in time-series fashion and visually
inspected for changes in level, variability, and trend between and across sessions.

2. Results

2.1. Parent behaviors

Figs. 1 and 2 display data on the acquisition and generalization of DTT procedures for the
two parents, Melissa and Jina. Fig. 1 displays the percent of correct teaching by trial for Melissa,
extending across the child skills of attending, writing, counting and indicating preference
(choosing). During baseline, Melissa’s correct use of DTT across all child-skills averaged 5%
(range, 1–9%). Following parent training, her correct use of DTT for ‘‘attending’’ (top panel)
increased immediately, from 5% in baseline to 74% in the following session. Correct teaching
levels remained high, though variable, for the remaining training sessions (mean, 76.8%).
Melissa’s teaching across the three untrained child-skills, ‘‘writing’’, ‘‘counting,’’ and
‘‘choosing’’, increased somewhat following training on ‘‘attending,’’ from 5%, 1%, and 9%,
respectively, during the first baseline session, to 18%, 32.5%, and 35%, respectively, during the
second baseline session. This suggests some generalization of parent performance across child-
skills following training with only one skill. When parent training was provided, correct teaching
for ‘‘writing’’ (second panel) increased from 18% (prior baseline session) to 54%. Correct
30 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

Fig. 1. The percent of Melissa’s correct discrete trials teaching across four child skills—attending (top panel), writing
(second panel), counting (third panel), and indicating preference (bottom panel). The dotted line indicates the point at
which training was provided for each child skill.

teaching remained moderately high and variable for the remaining training sessions (mean,
69.2%). Melissa’s teaching across the two remaining untrained child-skills increased following
training with ‘‘writing.’’ ‘‘Counting’’ increased from 32.5% to 36%, and ‘‘choosing’’ increased
from 35% to 62%, suggesting generalization of parent teaching skills following training with the
second child-skill. Although Melissa’s correct teaching for ‘‘counting’’ increased from 1% to
36% prior to training (mean, 22.5%), there was a substantial additional increase when parent
training was provided for that child skill: 90% following the first training session with a long-
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 31

Fig. 2. The percent of Jina’s correct discrete trials teaching across four child skills—attending (top panel), labeling
(second panel), ball play (third panel), and verbal imitation (bottom panel). The dotted line indicates the point at which
training was provided for each child skill.

term average of 87.5%. Generalization occurred to an even greater extent with ‘‘choosing’’
following parent training on ‘‘counting,’’ increasing from 62% to 86%. Following parent
training, Melissa’s correct teaching for ‘‘choosing’’ (bottom panel) surprisingly decreased
slightly from 86% to 79%. However, this training average still reflected an increase from the total
baseline average of 48%. Although Melissa’s correct use of DTT had generalized to ‘‘choosing’’
prior to parent training, she requested to be trained on that skill as well.
32 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

Fig. 2 displays Jina’s use of the DTT procedure across four child skills—attending, labeling,
ball/toy play, and verbal imitation (which went untreated). During baseline, Jina’s correct use of
the procedure across the four child-skills averaged 7.5% (3–18%). Jina’s correct teaching with
‘‘attending’’ (top panel) increased considerably, from 4% in baseline to 94% in the first session
following parent training. She maintained this high level throughout the remaining ‘‘attending’’
sessions (mean, 92.7%). Increases in correct teaching for the three untrained child-skills were
rapid and substantial following training with ‘‘attending.’’ Correct teaching for ‘‘labeling’’
increased from 5% to 69%; for ‘‘ball play,’’ from 3% to 86%; and for ‘‘verbal imitation,’’ from
18% to 98.3%, suggesting generalization following training on just one child skill. Correct
teaching for ‘‘labeling’’ increased following training from 69% in the prior session to 88%, and
averaged 90% for both post-training sessions. Correct teaching for ‘‘ball play’’ averaged 87%

Fig. 3. The percent of Jason’s correct, incorrect, and prompted responding across attending (top panel), writing (second
panel), counting (third panel), and indicating preference (bottom panel) conditions. The dotted line indicates the point at
which training was provided to Jason’s parent.
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 33

during the last baseline session, but increased further following training (mean, 98.3%). ‘‘Verbal
imitation,’’ which was not directly trained due to the high levels of generalization following
training with the first child skill, averaged 98.3%, 99%, and 98.3% across the last three baseline
sessions, respectively. It should be noted that in four instances, sections of the videotapes were
recorded over. Because observational recordings were made from videotapes (not directly, during
the sessions), these data (22 trials) were lost.

2.2. Child behaviors

Figs. 3 and 4 display correct, incorrect, and prompted behavior for the two children, Jason
(Melissa’s child) and Nevin (Jina’s child). Four panels of graphs are presented for each child,

Fig. 4. The percent of Nevin’s correct, incorrect, and prompted responding across attending (top panel), labeling (second
panel), ball play (third panel), and verbal imitation (bottom panel) conditions. The dotted line indicates the point at which
training was provided to Nevin’s parent.
34 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36

each depicting the particular type of responding, correct (^), incorrect (&), and prompted (D),
across the four child skills. The staggered condition lines indicate the point at which training was
provided to each child’s parent.
Fig. 3 displays data on Jason’s responding during attending, writing, counting, and indicating
preference (choosing). Jason’s responding did not seem to change as a result of his mother
receiving parent training, with the exception of attending responses (top panel) and writing
responses (second panel). Correct responding on attending increased slightly, from a baseline
mean of 44% to a post-training mean of 57%. Incorrect responding on attending decreased
slightly, from a mean of 52–31%. Correct responding on writing increased from a baseline mean
of 12% to a post-training mean of 61%. Incorrect responding on writing decreased following
parent training, from a baseline mean of 52% to a post-training mean of 27%. Responding on all
other tasks remained stable across training phases.
Fig. 4 shows Nevin’s responding across attending, labeling, ball/toy play, and verbal imitation.
There were four notable changes in Nevin’s responding across training phases. For attending (top
panel), his correct responding increased from a baseline mean of 8% to a post-training mean of
34%. Incorrect responding decreased from 88% to 43%, while prompted responding increased
from 4% to 24%. There was also a slight increase in correct responding for ball play (third panel),
from a baseline mean of 20% to a post-training mean of 41%.

3. Discussion

Results of this study demonstrate that two parents were able to acquire a well-defined set of
behaviors for teaching their children with autism. This study adds to previous findings in the
parent training literature by providing repeated-measures data on the generality of parent
learning. Both parents improved their teaching across child skills before receiving training on all
child skills, although this effect required fewer exemplars and was more striking with Jina than
with Melissa. Our results suggest that these effects occurred as a function of the parent training
intervention. Systematic replications with more participants will be needed to strengthen and
build upon the current study. Still, it is interesting to note the differences between the two parents,
which at least suggest that what served as a sufficient number of training exemplars varied
between them. For Melissa, it appears that training on three child-skill exemplars was needed for
her performance to reach high levels, although some increases in her teaching to untrained child
skills were evident following the first training session (with attending). With Jina, substantial
increases in her teaching across the three untrained child-skills occurred almost immediately
following training in attending, suggesting that training in one exemplar was sufficient to
improve her performance.
Although Melissa and Jina began to improve their performance at different times in the study,
it is noteworthy from a cost-effectiveness standpoint that both extended their teaching to
untrained child skills by the third training session. These data therefore support assessing
generalization throughout training. Although assessing for generalization is an additional time
commitment not typically included in parent training programs, it may be more cost-effective to
monitor parent performance across untrained child skills rather than to train all skills
sequentially. In this study, Jina’s generalization across untrained child skills eliminated the need
to train the final child skill.
The present study combines the instruction and videotape demonstration aspects of Koegel
et al. (1978) study with additional behavioral skills training, including an in vivo demonstration
of how to apply each component of the procedure to a specific child skill, participation in role-play
 J.L. Crockett et al. / Research in Developmental Disabilities 28 (2007) 23–36 35

and direct practice and delivery of feedback applied to the same child skill demonstrated during
the lecture. Future research should include component analyses to determine whether inclusion
of these procedures offers the most cost-effective way of promoting both acquisition and
generalization. This will require that procedures be described in operational detail, preferably with
integrity of treatment data to document consistency of training implementation.
The purpose of any parent training program is to improve the child’s quality of life.
Accordingly, an analysis of child gains is important. Results of this study show only slight
improvement in skill acquisition across the two children. Perhaps this should not be surprising,
considering the short amount of time they were involved in this study. Parents received a total of
9–13 h of training and practice over the 4–6 sessions. Previous research indicating significant
child gains using DTT involved 1–3 years of systematic parent–child intervention, following or
along with parent training. In addition, Baker (1989) noted the difficulty in obtaining accurate
and meaningful measures of child change in parent training programs limited to 10 weekly
sessions. Changes in children’s behavior often emerge slowly, and may not be evident for
months following training. Baker (1989) suggested that the best time for measurement of child
gains might be at follow-up. The substantial child gains reported by Lovaas (1987) became
evident after at least 2 years of treatment with the child and parent. Parents in the current
study implemented DTT teaching for only a fraction of the time the literature suggests might be
needed to produce significant child gains. Still, small improvement in the two children’s
behavior occurred. At the beginning of the study, incorrect responding was frequent for both
children, but by the final session, both children had demonstrated decreases in incorrect
responding. Enhanced child gains may also have been facilitated by additional attention to
factors outside of parent behavior, such as task difficulty level and additional systematic
reinforcer assessment.
The present study demonstrated that two parents of children with developmental disabilities
were able to learn DTT procedures and extend their skills across similar and dissimilar child
skills within 2–4 training sessions. This generalization of parent behaviors across dissimilar child
skills is especially important for parents whose children demonstrate deficits in multiple and
dissimilar skill areas. Finally, research is needed to determine if similar effects occur when
training is conducted in more natural settings, such as the home.

Acknowledgements

This study was completed as partial fulfillment for the Masters of Science degree for the first
author. The authors would like to thank Karen Green and Cristian Cox for their assistance in data
collection and analysis. The authors would also like to thank Samera Baird and Jim Johnston for
their service as thesis committee members.

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