ERIC EJ868585: Evaluation of a Commercially Available Program and in Situ Training by Parents to Teach Abduction-Prevention Skills to Children

2009·0.18 MB·English

by  ERIC

JOURNALOFAPPLIEDBEHAVIORANALYSIS 2009, 42, 761–772 NUMBER4 (WINTER2009)
EVALUATION OF A COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PROGRAM AND IN
SITU TRAINING BY PARENTS TO TEACH ABDUCTION-PREVENTION
SKILLS TO CHILDREN
KIMBERLY V. BECK AND RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
UNIVERSITYOFSOUTHFLORIDA
Child abduction is a serious problem; therefore, it is essential that researchers evaluate the
efficacy of commercially available abduction-prevention programs. A multiple baseline design
acrossparticipants(ages6to8years)wasusedtoevaluatetheeffectsofatrainingprogram,The
Safe Side. Experimenters assessed safety responses in situ in two different situations (knock on
the door and interaction by a stranger in public). Results revealed that participants did not
demonstratethesafetyskillsfollowingSafeSidetraining.Allparticipantssubsequentlyreceived
in situ training (IST) implemented by the parent. Additional assessments and IST were
conducteduntileachparticipantperformedtheskillstocriterion.Allparticipantsdemonstrated
criterion performance following ISTandmaintained theskills over time.
DESCRIPTORS: abduction, insituassessment, insitutraining, prevention, safetyskills
_______________________________________________________________________________
Childabductionisoneofmanysafetythreats Wolery, & Katzenmeyer, 1995; Marchand-
to children in the U.S. Although it is unlikely Martella, Huber, Martella, & Wood, 1996;
that most children will ever experience an Poche, Brouwer, & Swearingen, 1981; Poche,
abduction situation, there are serious conse- Yoder,&Miltenberger,1988).Despiteparents’
quences of abduction, including sexual abuse efforts to watch children closely, many children
and death. Most child abductions are commit- are abducted annually. Nearly a quarter of the
ted by family members of the victim; however, nonfamily abductions that occurred in 1999
studies conducted by the U.S. Department of took place in the home or yard of the victim.
Justice reveal that approximately 58,200 chil- The remaining 77% took place in the commu-
dren were abducted in 1999 by nonfamily nity (e.g., streets and parks; Finkelhor et al.).
perpetrators (Finkelhor, Hammer, & Sedlak, Because research has shown that most child
2002). In a nonfamily abduction, perpetrators abductions occur when an adult entices the
oftenuselurestoenticeachildtogowiththem child to leave willingly by delivering an
voluntarily. Some of the most common lures abduction lure, researchers began to evaluate
include offering incentives or asking for assis- training programs to address this safety threat.
tance to entice the child and using authority to Poche et al. (1981) and Marchand-Martella et
convince the child that the perpetrator has al. (1996) evaluated the efficacy of behavioral
appropriate permission to take the child. skills training (BST) for teaching abduction-
Research on child abduction reveals that most prevention skills. BST, which includes instruc-
perpetrators engage in a friendly interaction to tions,modeling,rehearsalineithersimulatedor
establish rapport with their victims, and naturalistic settings, or both, and feedback
children often leave willingly with an abductor (praise and correction), has been shown to be
after being presented with a lure (Holcombe, effective for teaching a variety of safety skills
(Carroll-Rowan & Miltenberger, 1994; Himle
Address correspondence to Raymond G. Miltenberger, & Miltenberger, 2004; Marchand-Martella et
Department of Child and Family Studies, FMHI, al.; Miltenberger & Olsen, 1996; Olsen-
University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida 33612 (e-
Woods, Miltenberger, & Foreman, 1998;
mail:[email protected]).
doi:10.1901/jaba.2009.42-761 Poche et al., 1981, 1988). The results of Poche
761
762 KIMBERLY V. BECK and RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
et al. (1981) and Marchand-Martella et al. icantly better than the control group. At the 3-
revealed that children’s safety skills improved month follow-up, the BST plus IST group
greatly from baseline to posttreatment. Addi- performedbetterthantheBST-alonegroup.
tional studies focused on group training and Although much of the research supports IST
found that following BST, most children as an effective approach to teach prevention
learned the skills (Carroll-Rowan & Miltenber- skills, it requires trained professionals, is time
ger; Olsen-Woods et al.; Poche et al., 1988). consuming, and can be costly to arrange. BST
Although participants in previous research and IST most often are implemented on a one-
demonstrated acquisition of safety skills follow- to-one basis and thus are not practical
ing BST, some participants failed to engage in approaches for reaching the large numbers of
theappropriatebehaviorwhenassessedduringin children who couldbenefit from training.In an
situ assessments, suggesting that these partici- effort to streamline training and make it more
pants are not likely to demonstrate the safety accessible, researchers have evaluated the use of
skills when faced with a real abduction situation video training procedures (e.g., Carroll-Rowan
(Carroll-Rowan & Miltenberger, 1994; Himle, & Miltenberger, 1994; Poche et al., 1988). In
Miltenberger, Gatheridge, & Flessner, 2004; each of these studies, video modeling plus
Miltenberger, Thiesse-Duffy, Suda, Kozak, & behavioral rehearsal and feedback were effective
Bruellman, 1990). In an attempt to increase the in teaching abduction-prevention skills.
probability of generalization after skills are Researchershavealsoevaluatedtheefficacyof
acquired using BST, researchers have added in commercially available programs that are po-
situ training (IST) and have found it to be tentially more accessible to mass audiences and
effective (Gatheridge et al., 2004; Himle et al.; thus may reach more children simultaneously
Johnson et al., 2005, 2006; Miltenberger et al., (e.g., Gatheridge et al., 2004; Himle et al.,
1999, 2004). IST is conducted when the 2004; Kelso, Miltenberger, Waters, Egemo-
participant fails to demonstrate the safety skills Helm, & Bagne, 2007). Most of this research
during the in situ assessment. Immediately after hasfocusedonevaluatingcommercialprograms
failuretousetheskills,thetrainerappearsinthe forteachingskillstochildrentopreventfirearm
environment and provides on-the-spot training, injuries. For example, the Eddie Eagle GunSafe
consistingoffurtherrehearsalsofthesafetyskills, program, available for purchase from the
untiltheparticipantexhibitsthecorrectresponse National Rifle Association (NRA), has been
three to five consecutive times in the environ- used with over 15 million children in the
ment in which the safety threat just occurred United States, according to figures provided by
(Egemo-Helm et al., 2007; Gatheridge et al.; the NRA. Himle et al. (2004) found that the
Himle et al.; Johnson et al., 2005, 2006; Eddie Eagle program was not effective with 4-
Miltenberger et al., 1999, 2004, 2005). and 5-year-olds, and Gatheridge et al. (2004)
Johnson et al. (2005) taught abduction found similar results with 6- and 7-year-olds.
prevention skills to 13 preschool children using However, Gatheridge et al. and Kelso et al.
BSTandIST.AfterinitialtrainingwithBST,IST (2007) showed that IST following the Eddie
was implemented for any participant who failed Eagle program increased the effectiveness of the
to demonstrate the safety skills. Posttraining and program (almost all children in both the Eddie
follow-up assessments revealed that participants Eagle and the BST groups demonstrated the
acquired and maintained the abduction-preven- skills following one IST).
tion skills. Johnson et al. (2006) evaluated BST A recent Internet search on child abduction-
alone verses BST plus IST in a small-group prevention programs revealed several commer-
format.Bothtreatmentgroupsperformedsignif- cially available programs designed to teach
AN ABDUCTION-PREVENTION PROGRAM 763
children the skills to avoid abduction. One area. All of the participants were recruited
popularprogram,TheSafeSide,employsavideo through a college-wide e-mail to staff at a local
training approach with instructions and model- university to request their children’s participa-
ingofsafetyskillstoteachabduction-prevention tion. Selection criteria included age, absence of
skillstochildrenages5to10yearsold.Similarto any known mental health disorders or disabil-
othersafetyskillsprogramsthathavebeenshown ities, absence of prior abduction-prevention
to be effective (Johnson et al., 2005, 2006; training, availability to participate in multiple
Marchand-Martella et al., 1996; Poche et al., assessments, and the receipt of written, in-
1981) The Safe Side program instructs children formed parental consent. The study was
tosayno,getaway,andtellaparentorothersafe reviewed and approved by the university
adultwhenpresentedwithapotentialabduction institutional review board.
situation. Although the program uses a video- Assessment and training took place in the
modeling approach similar to those found children’shomesandinavarietyoflocationsin
effective in previous studies, it lacks rehearsal the community. Thirteen (3 men and 10
andfeedbackcomponents,whicharecriticaltoa women) graduate students in an applied
program’s efficacy (Carroll-Rowan & Milten- behavior analysis master’s program acted as
berger, 1994; Poche et al., 1988). the confederates and data collectors. Each
Although The Safe Side Web site (www. confederate conducted one or two assessments
thesafeside.com) hosts a page of testimonials per child. If a confederate conducted a second
regarding the efficacy of the training program assessment with a child, it was a minimum of 2
and lists the numerous awards the program has months later, and the confederate changed his
received, there is no published research that has or her appearance.
examined the program’s efficacy. It would be
beneficialforresearcherstoexaminecommercial Materials
programs that can be purchased on the Internet The Safe Side training DVD titled ‘‘Stranger
by any family, school, or other entity interested Safety’’ was used in the study. The DVD is
in teaching safety skills. If such programs are 42 min long and provides several ‘‘hot tips’’ to
foundtobeeffective,manymorechildrencould teach abduction safety skills to children ages 5
receive training in less time and with fewer to 10 years old. The objective of the video is to
resources. Furthermore, by examining the effi- teach children with instructions and modeling
cacy of commercially available prevention pro- to respond safely in various possible abduction
grams, researchers can identify modifications situations. These responses included the safe
that can be made to increase a program’s way to respond to a knock on the door, to an
effectiveness,ifnecessary.Therefore,thepurpose abductionlure,andtoanadultwhoviolatesthe
of the current study was to evaluate the efficacy child’s personal space.
ofTheSafeSideabduction-preventionprogram.
Target Behaviors
A second purpose was to evaluate the effective-
ness of IST implemented by the parent for any The target behaviors were the safety skills
child who did not demonstrate the skills used in response to two different potential
following the evaluation of the program. abduction situations that were addressed in the
DVD: (a) the knock on the door and (b) the
approach. Multiple scenarios were developed
METHOD
for each of the two situations, and no scenario
Participants and Settings was used more than once with any one
Participants were 5 girls and 1 boy, ages 6 participant during any of the assessments (i.e.,
and 8 years, living in a southern metropolitan the location was not repeated, or the nature of
764 KIMBERLY V. BECK and RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
the visit to the store was different). The safety for the child to respond to this potentially
skills for each situation were coded with the dangerous interaction by getting away and
numerical values described below. telling a parent.
Theknockonthedoor.Inresponsetoaknock
Assessment
on the door when the parent was not present in
the room, the target safety skill was not to The safety skills relevant to each of the two
answer the door and to go tell the parent that potential abduction situations were assessed
someone was at the door. Observers coded the through in situ assessments conducted before
safety skills on a 3-point scale as follows: 0 5 and after training. At no point during or
following completion of the study were the
opens the door independently (without parental
permission), 1 5 does not open the door but does participantsmadeawareoftheirparticipationin
not tell parent, 2 5 does not open the door and the assessments. During an in situ assessment,
the child was at the home or taken to a
tells parent that someone knocked on the door.
community setting by the parent and was
The approach. The approach involved a
unaware that assessment was taking place. Each
scenario in which an adult violated a child’s
assessment was approximately 3 to 5 min in
personal space by walking up to a child in a
duration. Both the researcher and the parent
public place, standing close to the child, and
independently recorded the participant’s re-
talking to the child. Observers scored the safety
sponse using paper and pencil. Data were
skills (gets away immediately and tells an adult)
collected outside the participant’s view.
on a 3-point scale as follows: 0 5 stays in
During the knock-on-the-door situation, the
proximityofconfederate(regardlessofwhetheror
confederate knocked loudly on the door using
not the child reports the incident); 1 5 gets
fiveconsecutiveraps(iftherewasadoorbell,the
awayimmediately,butdoesnottellanadult;25
confederate rang the bell in conjunction with
getsaway immediatelyandtellsan adult.Getting
knocking on the door). The confederate waited
away immediately was defined as leaving the
10 s for the door to be answered before
proximity of the confederate within 10 s of
knockingagain.Theconfederatewaitedanother
initiationofspeechbyconfederateandtraveling
10 s if the door was not answered and knocked
a minimum of 1.7 m away from the confeder-
one final time, for a total of three knocks.
ate in the direction of his or her parent (or
During the approach situation, the parent
reaching the parent).
took the child to a community location for a
A decision was made to use the approach
legitimate purpose (e.g., shopping, playing in
instead of an abduction lure to measure thepark)andleftthechild’simmediatevicinity.
abduction safety skills for two reasons; one Once the parent was away from the child, a
was that the approach, in which the adult confederate approached the child and began
engages the child in pleasant conversation, is a speaking with the child by saying something
precursor to the delivery of the abduction lure relevant to what the child was doing (e.g.,
(Poche et al., 1981), so it is most safe for the ‘‘that’s a good cereal; my daughter really likes
child to respond before the lure is delivered. Lucky Charms, do you?’’). If the child spoke
The second reason was that the child was less and stayed in the confederate’s proximity, the
likelyto be frightened when presented with this confederaterespondedwithonebriefstatement.
situation than when presented with an actual If the child did not get away, the confederate
lure involving a request to leave with the adult. waited10 sandthenleft.Forbothsituations,if
Althoughan adult might engage a solitary child the child exhibited the correct safety skills, the
in conversation without any intent to abduct parentprovidedpraisetothechildforreporting
the child, the most conservative response was the situation. A wide variety of community
AN ABDUCTION-PREVENTION PROGRAM 765
locations was used to ensure an adequate or not the child answered the door and 100%
assessment of the generalized use of the safety for whether or not the child reported that
skills. The community locations included the someone knocked.
child’s front and backyards, grocery stores,
office stores, public parks, clothing department Side Effects and Social Validity Questionnaire
stores, a video store, a dollar store, a pharmacy, The experimenter administered a six-item
big box stores, a sporting goods store, a bank, a questionnaire to parents (Johnson et al., 2005)
publiclibrary,afastfoodrestaurant,andadine- to assess any possiblechanges in their children’s
in restaurant. behavior after training and to assess parental
Follow-up was conducted using in situ attitudes concerning training. The question-
assessments 4 to 22 weeks after training to naire was e-mailed to the parents of children
assessmaintenanceofthesafetyskillsduringthe who completed the study.
approach situation only. If the child demon-
Experimental Design and Procedure
strated the skills, the parent provided descrip-
tive, enthusiastic praise. If the child did not A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design
demonstrate the appropriate skills, the parent across participants was used to evaluate the
was instructed to provide IST. efficacy of The Safe Side DVD and IST if
needed.
Observers and Interobserver Agreement Baseline. Participants received two to five in
The confederate served as the primary situ assessments for each situation during
observer for whether the child opened the door baseline. No feedback was provided for their
and got away immediately (when relevant). In performance during assessments. Because the
both situations, the parent acted as the primary intervention (viewing the DVD) occurred for
observer for whether the child reported that both situations simultaneously, the timing of
someone was at the door or that a stranger implementation of the intervention was based
spoke to him or her in the community. The on the stability of the data in one of the two
parent or another trained research assistant situations. We chose the approach situation
acted as the reliability observer. becausewedeemedtheuseofsafetyskillsinthis
Interobserver agreement was calculated sepa- situation to be most important.
rately for approach and for knock on the door. Safe Side DVD. Each participant viewed the
Interobserver agreement was calculated by DVD in his or her home. The 42-min DVD
dividing the number of agreements by the employs a passive teaching approach involving
number of agreements plus disagreements for instructions and modeling of the safety skills
eachofthetargetedresponses.Thisnumberwas across a variety of scenarios. By watching the
then converted to a percentage. Two observers video, the child received training on both
recordedwhetherthechildgotawaywithin10 s dependent variables that we reported in the
during 52% of approach assessments, and two study. Within 1 week after viewing the DVD,
observers recorded whether the child told the another assessment for each situation was
parent during 43% of approach assessments. conducted. If the participant failed to demon-
Interobserver agreement was 97% for getting strate the appropriate safety skills during the in
away and 100% for telling. Two observers situ assessment, IST was conducted by the
recorded whether the child answered the door parent.
during 45% of knock assessments, and two IST. Prior to this phase, the parents received
observers recorded whether the child told the instructional documents (including a script and
parent during 43% of knock assessments. protocol) and brief verbal modeling using
Interobserver agreement was 94% for whether examples of relevant situations. The first author
766 KIMBERLY V. BECK and RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
provided further assistance to the parent during an in situ assessment was conducted to assess
the first IST session by modeling missed steps the child’s use of the safety responses for the
and providing immediate feedback. The exper- situation. If the child demonstrated the safety
imenter provided continuous feedback and skills, the parent provided enthusiastic praise. If
discussion to the parent throughout the study the child failed to perform the skills for the
via phone. When the child failed to demon- situation, the parent implemented IST. Further
strate the safety skills in the approach situation, in situ assessments were conducted, with
the parent walked up to the child, and the additional IST sessions as needed, until the
confederate immediately left the situation. The childengagedinthedesiredsafetyskillsinthree
parent identified the safety threat and the consecutive in situ assessments.
danger it posed, prompted the child to state Booster training session. The researcher pro-
the correct responses, modeled the appropriate videdaboostertrainingsessionforMeghanand
skills for the child if necessary, and engaged the Alyssa because they did not achieve criterion
childin three consecutive role playsof the same performance(threeconsecutivescoresof2)after
scenario. For the first IST session, the first several in situ assessments following DVD
author showed up in the situation and acted as viewing and IST. The booster session followed
if the meeting was coincidental. The parent a BST format that included instructions,
introduced the investigator to the child as a modeling,rehearsal, and feedback.The training
friendorcolleagueandaskedtheinvestigatorto session was conducted at the home of the 2
participants (the participants were siblings) and
act as the stranger to help them practice the
included both participants and both parents.
scenarios. The scenario was then practiced three
Trainingbeganwiththeresearcherdiscussing
consecutivetimes,andthetrainingsessionlasted
what the children should do if a stranger
approximately 5 min. In all subsequent IST
knocked on their door or approached them in
sessions (conducted after any in situ assessment
public and their parent was not next to them.
inwhichthe childdid not score a 2), the parent
Theremainderoftrainingpertainedonlytothe
followedthesameprocedureaslistedabove,but
situation of a stranger approaching the child in
conducted training alone and simulated the
the community. The researcher modeled the
presence of a stranger. For example, the parent
appropriatesafetyskillsandthenhadeachchild
recreated the scene by sending the child back to
rehearse several different scenarios four times.
the same task and saying to the child, ‘‘Pretend
The parent practiced providing enthusiastic
you’re looking for cereal, and I’m over here
praise to each child as he or she demonstrated
getting coffee. Someone you don’t know just
the appropriate skills.
spoke to you.’’ When the child rehearsed the
Following the booster session, the parents
skills,theparentprovidedpraise.Inonecase,the
tookthe2childrentoastore.Eachparentpaired
parent had a friend play the confederate in the
offwithachildandheadedtoaseparatesection
role-play scenarios.
ofthestore.Oncetheywereindifferentsections
For the knock-on-the-door situation, the
ofthestore,1childwaspresentedwithaninsitu
parent followed the same protocol by providing
assessment and IST. A few minutes later, this
praise for correct skills, implementing IST for
procedure was implemented for the other child.
anymissedsteps,orboth.TheISTintheknock
situation differed from the approach situation
RESULTS
only in that the confederate who had knocked
on the door acted as someone whom the parent During baseline, the participants’ scores in
knew and participated in the three practices of the approach situation varied from 0 to 1
the safety skills. Within 1 week following IST, (Figure 1).Meghan,Caleb,Sandie,andKaitlyn
AN ABDUCTION-PREVENTION PROGRAM 767
Figure1. Safety scores across participants during the approach situation.
left the confederate’s proximity within 10 s of participant (Caleb), received a score of a 0.
being approached at least once during baseline, Caleb received a score of 1, because he left the
but none of the participants reported to their area of the confederate but failed to report to
parentthattheywereapproachedandspokento the parent. He had achieved a score of a 1 for
by a stranger. After viewing the DVD, all but 1 two of the three baseline data points.
768 KIMBERLY V. BECK and RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
IST was implemented for all of the partici- (the remaining parent reported that she was
pants following the DVD viewing. Following pleased) with their child’s participation.
IST, Caleb, Gillian, and Sandie achieved
criterionperformanceimmediately,andKaitlyn
DISCUSSION
achieved it more gradually. Alyssa and Meghan
The current study evaluated the efficacy of
did not achieve three consecutive scores of 2
The Safe Side DVD in teaching abduction-
following IST, even after four or five IST
prevention skills to children. The results of this
sessions. For these individuals, the researcher
study suggest that the DVD is not effective in
implemented a booster session. Following the
teaching children to engage in abduction-
boostersession,additionalapproachassessments
preventionskillswhenapproachedbyastranger
were conducted, and both participants rapidly
in the community. We measured two of the
achieved criterion.
skills addressed in the video (responding to an
Skill maintenance was assessed during the
approachbyastrangerinpublicandresponding
approach situation for Sandie, Gillian, Kaitlyn,
to a knock on the door). None of the children
andCaleb(MeghanandAlyssawereunavailable
demonstrated the appropriate safety skills for
for follow-up assessments). Sandie, Gillian, and
responding to a stranger’s approach after
Kaitlyn participated in two follow-up assess-
viewing thevideo; in fact, allof the participants
ments, the first taking place 4 weeks after their
except 1 scored a 0 when approached by a
last assessment and then another 8 to 18 weeks
stranger. Furthermore, for the 2 children who
later. Caleb participated in a follow-up assess-
did not already possess the skills of responding
ment 19 weeks after his last assessment. During
safelytoaknockonthedoor,theDVDdidnot
all of the follow-up assessments, all 4 of the
result in acquisition of the skills.
participants got away from the confederate
These results are important because they
and reported the approach to their parent,
showed that a commercially available prevention
thus demonstrating maintenance of the safety
program alone failed to teach safety skills to
skills.
children.Parentsshouldbemadeawarethattheir
Caleb, Gillian, Sandie, and Kaitlyn demon-
children may not learn the skills necessary to
strated the appropriate safety skills during the
avoidabductionasaresultofTheSafeSidevideo
knock situation in baseline (Figure 2). After
training alone. These results are not surprising,
viewing the DVD, the 4 participants main-
because the video is information based, and
tained their performance throughout the re-
although it uses video modeling, it does not
mainder of the assessments. Meghan and Alyssa
employ the active learning approach that is
both scored 0 during all baseline assessments
effective at teaching skills (Miltenberger, 2008).
and following the DVD viewing. They received ThecurrentfindingsaresimilartothoseofHimle
IST, immediately achieved criterion perfor- et al. (2004) and Gatheridge et al. (2004), in
mance during the next assessment, and main- which the investigators found that an informa-
tained the skills for three consecutive assess- tion-based gun safety program (the Eddie Eagle
ments. GunSafe program) was not effective at teaching
Theparentsofall6participantsfilledoutthe skills to avoid firearm injuries. However, the
socialvalidity/sideeffectsquestionnaire,andthe findings are similar to those of Gatheridge et al.
results are displayed in Table 1. Three of the 6 (2005)andKelsoetal.(2007)showing that IST
reported no change in their child’s behavior, 2 canbeeffectivefollowingineffectivetrainingwith
reported moderate changes, and 1 reported an information-based program.
substantial change. Five parents who completed Although this study adds to the growing
the survey reported that they were very pleased literature validating IST, it is only one of two
AN ABDUCTION-PREVENTION PROGRAM 769
Figure 2. Safety scores across participants during theknock-on-the-door situation.
770 KIMBERLY V. BECK and RAYMOND G. MILTENBERGER
Table 1
Social Validity Results
Participation
Child’sbehaviorchange Pleasedwith Satisfactionwith
child’s researchers’
Participant Scared Cautious Upset Otherchanges participation communication
Alyssa Nochange Nochange Nochange ‘‘Somewhatmore Verypleased Verysatisfied
observantofstrangers’’
Caleb Muchmore Nochange Muchmoreupset Verypleased Verysatisfied
scared (childhada
related
nightmare)
Kaitlyn Alittlemore Alittlemore Alittlemore Whenaskedtositalone, Pleased Verysatisfied
scared cautious upset childsays,‘‘Butwhat
ifsomeonetriesto
talktome?’’
Sandie Alittlemore Alittlemore Alittlemore Verypleased Verysatisfied
scared cautious upset
Meghan Nochange Nochange Nochange ‘‘Somewhatmore Verypleased Verysatisfied
observantofstrangers’’
Gillian Nochange Nochange Nochange Verypleased Verysatisfied
studies that support the efficacy of IST when what she was supposed to do, and Kaitlyn
implemented by persons other than trained reported that ‘‘no one spoke to her because she
researchers. Only one other study (Gross, got away so there was nothing to report.’’
Miltenberger, Knudson, Bosch, & Breitwieser, Kaitlyn’s mother reported that she spoke to her
2007) showed that IST can be implemented by about the importance of reporting that a
parents. Gross et al. showed that parents can strangertalkedtoher,buttheydidnotrehearse.
successfully implement IST when teaching gun During an assessment for Alyssa, she failed to
safety skills to children. This finding is demonstrate any of the skills, but her father did
significant because of the time and cost that not conduct any part of the training. He later
IST can require. It would be beneficial if reported that he thought that the confederate
parents and teachers could be trained to signaled to him that Alyssa performed the
implement training to reduce cost and poten- correctskills(eventhoughshedidnotgotoher
tially to teach more than one child at a time. father and report the approach). In addition,
In the present study, the parents of 2 of the Alyssa’s and Meghan’s father used little to no
participants had difficulty implementing IST praise for correctly performed skills during the
with fidelity. The researchers were not able to assessments, which also suggests a deviation
consistently collect fidelity data; however, from the protocol.
parentalandconfederatereportstotheresearch- FollowingseveralreportsfromMeghan’sand
ers suggested that some parents deviated from Alyssa’s parents indicating their deviation from
the protocol. For example, in one instance, the training protocol, the researcher conducted
Meghanfailedtodemonstratetheskills,andher aboostersessionandsubsequentlyaccompanied
father approached her and asked her why she theparentononeassessmenttoconductIST.A
was talking to strangers. Her father did not possible explanation for the lack of fidelity is
conduct rehearsal or provide feedback during thatparentsdidnotreceiveadequatetrainingto
this session. During an assessment for Kaitlyn, conduct IST. The researcher gave parents a
she walked away immediately after the confed- protocol to follow and had discussions with
erate approached her and failed to report the them, but they did not receive BST to learn to
approach to her mother. Her mother asked her conduct IST. Future research should include a