The Effects of Teaching Parents Blended Communication and Behavior Support Strategies

Abstract

A multiple-probe single-subject research design was used to measure the effects of an intervention to teach parents to support communication and manage the behavior of their preschool children. Four children who demonstrated language delays and emergent behavior problems and their parents participated in the study. All participants were of low socioeconomic status. Following baseline and home generalization assessments, parents participated in 25 to 35 individual training sessions in which they were taught to be responsive to their children's communication, model developmentally appropriate language, and provide contingent consequences for compliance and noncompliance. As a result of the intervention, all four parents became more responsive to their children's communication, used fewer negative verbalizations, provided more expansions of their children's utterances, and supplied consequences to compliance and noncompliance more appropriately. Concurrent with the intervention, the four children increased the complexity and diversity of their language and were less noncompliant in interactions. Positive changes were observed during home generalization assessments for all four parents and for two children.