Using interactive web training to teach parents to select function-based interventions for challenging behaviour: A preliminary study

ABSTRACT

Background: Children with a developmental disability often engage in challenging behaviour, which may require that parents implement behavioural assessments and interventions. The purpose of our pilot study was to examine the effects of an interactive web training (IWT) to teach behavioural function identification and intervention selection to parents.

Method: Twenty-six parents of children with a developmental disability responded to function identification and intervention selection tasks on clinical vignettes before and following IWT. We also measured social validity and the duration of training.

Results: Our results show that parents were more accurate in the identification of behavioural function and selected more adequate interventions following IWT. On average, parents spent less than 2.5 h to complete IWT and rated it positively.

Conclusions: The IWT appears to be a viable tool to teach parents about function-based intervention, but additional research is needed to examine whether it translates to changes in parental practices and child behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• Behavioural intervention
• challenging behaviour
• developmental disability
• online training
• parent training

Acknowledgments

This paper was written in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the MS degree in Psychoeducation at the Université de Montréal by the first author. We thank Autisme Montréal and the CIUSSS de l’Ouest-de-l’Ile-de-Montréal for their support during the development of the training.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported in part by the Office des personnes handicapée du Québec; the Consortium de recherche en intégration sociale; and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec - Santé under Salary Award #30827.