Graduation Year
2015
Document Type
Thesis
Degree
M.A.
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.)
Degree Granting Department
Child and Family Studies
Major Professor
Kimberly Crosland, Ph.D., BCBA
Committee Member
Timothy Weil, Ph.D., BCBA-D
Committee Member
Kwang-Sun Blair, Ph.D., BCBA
Keywords
Applied Behavior Analysis, parent-child interactions, parenting tools, parenting skills
Abstract
Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) is an effective teaching package that is often used to teach new parenting skills. While BPT has been established as efficacious in teaching parenting skills, performance often returns to baseline levels. There may be myriad reasons for this; however, it is possible that competing contingencies in difficult behavioral interactions, and long histories of practices that solve behavioral issues in the short term, affect parents’ ability to implement what they were taught. This study sought to impact parental treatment integrity of a common set of parent training practices via an Acceptance and Commitment Training protocol. Parents were exposed to a behavioral parent training workshop targeting three parenting tools. Follow up measures were collected on implementation integrity and rate of parental coercive behaviors. Low levels of parenting skill implementation integrity were observed during baseline. Following the BPT training phase, implementation of parenting skills showed an increasing trend while parental coercives decreased in level. For the parent who met mastery criteria for all three tools, a follow up period, in which no feedback or training was implemented, and a decrease in level in parenting skill implementation integrity was observed. Following this, the parent participated in an Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACTr) workshop consisting of experiential exercises, metaphors, and homework assignments. After the ACTr workshop, implementation of parenting skills showed a continued increasing trend toward mastery, and frequency of negative parent-child interactions showed a further decreasing trend, as well for all parents.
Scholar Commons Citation
Defreitas, Jillian, "Acceptance and Commitment Training to Enhance a Behavioral Parent Training with Parents of Children with Autism" (2015). USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/etd/5934
