THE EFFECTS OF USING BEHAVIORAL SKILLS TRAINING TO TEACH PARENTS TO IMPLEMENT ESCAPE EXTINCTION PROCEDURES IN THE TREATMENT OF PEDIATRIC FEEDING DISORDERS

Abstract

The current study evaluated the effects of a Behavioral Skills Training (BST) package on parental implementation of escape extinction in a feeding clinic. Three parents of children enrolled in a clinic-based three-week intensive feeding disorder treatment program participated. The goal of the current study was to improve the already existing parent training component of the clinic’s program by utilizing BST to teach the participants critical skills needed to implement the feeding interventions at home. The BST package included verbal instruction, modeling, and role play with feedback. Generalization probes were conducted during parent-child feeding trials. A multiple baseline across behaviors design demonstrated the effectiveness of the BST package for all participants: percentage of steps implemented correctly increased to high levels for each skill. This study was limited by aspects of the experimental design and lack of generalization data. Future research should aim to close the gaps in the feeding disorder literature regarding parent training; additional research is needed in this subject area.