Graduation Year

2008

Document Type

Thesis

Degree

M.A.

Degree Granting Department

Applied Behavior Analysis

Major Professor

Meme Hieneman, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Mark Durand, Ph.D.

Committee Member

Shelley Clarke, M.A.

Keywords

Intervention strategies, Behavior support plan, Children with developmental disabilities, Parental implementation, Function based interventions

Abstract

Challenging behaviors such as hitting, kicking, screaming, destruction of property and other socially-inappropriate behaviors are common among children with significant disabilities. Behavior Parent Training (BPT), which is based on basic principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), has been shown to be effective in reducing these problem behaviors. Traditional approaches to BPT have typically emphasized consequence-based interventions, however, advances in the field of ABA (e.g., FBA, antecedent-based interventions) and PBS have led to more strategies that are more effective in complex community environments. Evidence of such practices is emerging but has not been adequately documented. The current study evaluated the use of a standardized PBS protocol in decreasing problem behaviors of four children with developmental disabilities. The success of the parent education protocol was evaluated using a multiple baseline across participants design. Results of this study showed that after participating in parent education using a standardized protocol, participants' children displayed decreases in problematic behavior as well as increases in adaptive behavior, for all but one of the participants.

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