Evaluation of Family-Implemented Behavioral Skills Training for Teaching Social Skills to a Child With Asperger's Disorder

Abstract

Social deficits are a hallmark feature of Asperger's disorder. However, social skill training is often complicated because clinician trainers usually do not have the opportunity to observe social behavior in naturally occurring contexts. One way to overcome this limitation is to teach family members to become effective change agents for social behavior. A mother and a sibling of a child with Asperger's disorder were trained to use behavioral skills training (BST) procedures to teach him social skills at home. The authors collected direct observation data of (a) family member performance while learning BST, (b) family member performance while teaching the client a target social skill, and (c) client performance during BST intervention of the target skill. These data indicated that family members acquired proficient performance of BST and taught the client with a high degree of treatment integrity. An AB design was used to demonstrate that the child's frequency of the target social skill increased following BST intervention.