Behavioral Skills Training and Self-Monitoring to Increase and Maintain the Rate and Quality of Parent-Delivered Praise

Supporting parents in foundational positive behavior support strategies for use with their child is a commonly employed method to improve child behavior in natural contexts, including the home. Parents have learned and implemented a variety of strategies with integrity; however, there is limited research regarding the maintenance of skills. Furthermore, although parents have been taught to implement behavior-specific praise (BSP), the quality of parent BSP has yet to be evaluated. Using a single-case design, the researchers taught three parents to use targeted levels of BSP that contained quality elements, including contingency, immediacy, and variety. Results demonstrated that behavioral skills training resulted in parent mastery of BSP for both frequency and quality; however, skills diminished during maintenance. Self-monitoring was then introduced, resulting in increases to targeted levels. Child engagement and problem behavior were also assessed, with mixed results. Social validity for both BSP and self-monitoring indicated that parents found the practices to be acceptable and feasible.