Training Behavioral Research Methods to Staff in an Early and Intensive Behavioral Intervention Setting: A Program Description and Preliminary Evaluation

The extensive clinical activity occurring in the area of early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) for children with autism represents a promising opportunity to conduct research on clinically relevant problems and on effectiveness and efficiency of various procedures. However, many practitioners providing these services may not have received adequate training in conducting single-case design research in field settings. Training practitioners to implement such research has the potential to improve the use of the scientist-practitioner model in these settings and expand the base of scientific knowledge in this area. Through the current training program, we used a modified behavioral skills training (BST) approach to teach practitioners to prepare and implement single-case design research protocols in an applied setting. Participants were able to learn and apply a number of important research skills as evidenced by statistically significant improvements on six tests throughout training and high scores on homework assignments that required staff to engage in various research-related behaviors. The results are discussed in the context of preparing EIBI settings for greater research productivity.