First Advisor

Murry, Francie R.

Document Type

Dissertation

Date Created

8-2021

Department

College of Education and Behavioral Sciences, Special Education, Special Education Student Work

Abstract

This study used a single-case research design across subjects. The purpose of this research was to investigate the effectiveness of a brief 6-hour training program in Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) for parents of young children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on the increased use of social functional utterances (SFU) by their children during play sessions. Baseline data were collected before the parent training. Training commenced once baseline trends showed stability, at which point the parents – all of whom were three fathers – received instruction in PRT motivational techniques for use in the home setting during play sessions. During the training sessions, the fathers were educated regarding how PRT motivational techniques and strategies are used and how to apply them in playtime with their children. After receiving the training, the parents then applied the PRT techniques during interactive play sessions over 8 weeks to develop the language use and social communication skills of their children with ASD. In this study, culture and language were factors considered as the parents and children were from Libya and spoke Arabic. This study is the first time these techniques have been implemented with this population of individuals. The cultural parenting interactions played a part in examining the results. The present research study demonstrated that following the brief training, the fathers were able to consistently utilize the PRT motivational techniques with their children with ASD during the intervention phase and that, once the intervention began, each of the three subject children with ASD showed an increase in mean frequency of social functional utterances. These exhibitions of increased SFU were a marked improvement, making the development of the brief training in PRT for parents worthwhile and cost-effective, in terms of personnel and time commitment. The significant increase in the mean frequencies of the PRT motivational techniques indicates that all the participating fathers successfully implemented the techniques with fidelity throughout the intervention phase of the research study. The visual inspection of the percentages of non-overlapping data values demonstrated that the intervention used in this research study was highly effective.

Extent

170 pages

Local Identifiers

Abda_unco_0161D_10971.pdf

Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

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