Evaluating the Use of Behavioral Skills Training to Improve School Staffs’ Implementation of Behavior Intervention Plans

Variations of behavioral skills training (BST) have been used to teach behaviorally oriented skills such as discrete trial teaching, guided compliance, the implementation of the picture exchange system, and safe guarding students with physical disabilities. One area that has not received much attention is evaluating school staff’s correct implementation of a behavior intervention plan (BIP). In the current investigation, we evaluated the use of BST to teach instructional staff in a special education setting how to correctly implement components of two students’ BIPs. Training consisted of two different phases: (a) verbal instructions and modeling and (b) rehearsal of the procedures. Results indicated that BST is effective at teaching staff components of BIP and that all staff’s implementation improved as a function of the training that was provided.