IMPROVEMENT OF NATURAL ENVIRONMENT TEACHING USING BEHAVIORAL SKILLS TRAINING

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects individuals through persistent deficits in social communication and excesses in restricted and/or repetitive behaviors (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Applied behavior analysis (ABA) is the only evidence-based treatment for ASD and uses behavioral and learning principles to shape behavior change (Ferguson et al., 2022; Lax et al., 2023; National Autism Center, 2015). ABA has many teaching methods, one being discrete trial training (DTT; Smith, 2001). DTT is a highly structured method of teaching in which the instructor provides clear instructions, the learner responds in some way, and then the instructor gives a consequence for the response (Smith, 2001). Despite efficacy, DTT has been criticized for being highly structured and failing to promote student generalization (Smith, 2001). In contrast, natural environment teaching (NET) directly programs for generalization by incorporating a variety of stimulus formats, settings, and people (Sundberg & Partington, 2013); however, the fluid nature of NET gives more opportunities for mistakes in implementation (Granpeesheh et al., 2009; Sundberg & Partington, 2013). The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the impact of Behavior Skills Training (BST) on implementation fidelity during NET-style instruction in practitioners working with children in a preschool setting. Three preschool staff who completed intervention increased their percent accuracy from an average of 53% in baseline to an average of 92% in a naturalistic environment reaching mastery criteria, with one staff maintaining this increase over time. This data suggests that BST is an effective training to improve percent accuracy for NET Implementation.