Abstract
The present study trained six parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder to implement the Natural Language Paradigm in Saudi Arabia. Three of the parents participated in direct training using a Behavioral Skills Training (BST) model involving instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. As each of the three parents were being trained directly an additional parent observed the training (i.e., there were three trainee-observer dyads). While all of the parents learned from observing other parents being trained directly, only one observer met the predetermined performance criteria after observation alone, with the other two requiring direct training using BST. The parents demonstrated maintenance of their skills at follow-up, and social validity evaluations were strong. In addition, all parents implemented the NLP procedures at mastery criteria in another setting during generalization probes. Implications for further training research are provided.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Eid, A.M., Alhaqbani, O.A., Asfahani, S.M. et al. Learning by Doing and Learning by Observing: Training Parents in Saudi Arabia to Implement the Natural Language Paradigm. J Dev Phys Disabil 29, 557–565 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-017-9544-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-017-9544-2