The present investigation was designed to yield data on the effectiveness of using parents as interventionists for their children and other parents. A multiple baseline design was employed to measure the effects of four intervention techniques on the teaching skills of nine parents of at-risk toddler-aged children. Each of the techniques was presented as a separate training module. A first cohort of three parents was trained by a professional interventionist on the use of the techniques. The parents from cohort one then trained a second cohort of three parents who then trained a third cohort of three parents. A fidelity of implementation measure indicated that the parents implemented the training procedures appropriately when training another parent. Measures to assess the effectiveness of the intervention techniques included an observational code which assessed parent and child behavior during teaching sessions and multiple choice tests taken by the subjects before and after each of the training modules. Results suggested that training had a functional effect on the parents' use of the selected intervention techniques, The intervention also had a functional effect on five of the nine children's percentage of correct responses during the teaching session. Scores on the multiple choice pre/post tests improved for 92 percent of the tests administered. The findings from this study suggest the four intervention techniques were effective in improving the related skills of parents, In addition, the effectiveness of using parents to teach the four techniques to other parents was also demonstrated, as was the cost-effectiveness of such a strategy.
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