Handbook for Behavioral Skills Training

Handbook for Behavioral Skills Training is a method consisting of multiple treatment components that is effective for training a wide variety of skills, both simple and complex, in people in a wide variety of populations, including children and adults with disabilities. This book is the first comprehensive research-based guide on behavior skills training for practitioners and human service organizations. Behavioral skills training includes instructions, modelling, rehearsal, and feedback, leading to improvement in social and language skills, reduced problem behavior, independence, and autonomy. This book provides a detailed roadmap from beginning (identifying training needs) to end (large scale application across entire organizations).

Table of Contents:
1. Behavioral Skills Training: An Introduction 2. Needs Assessment 3. Basic BST procedures 4. Programming Generalization and Maintenance 5. Applications 6. Evidence Base for Behavioral Skills Training 7. Component and Parametric Analyses 8. How Does BST Work? Functional analysis of BST 9. Pyramidal training and systems issues 10. Future directions

About the Author :
I have worked with children and adults with developmental disabilities for over 30 years as a volunteer; camp counselor; researcher; clinical psychologist in the British National Health Service; Chief Psychologist in developmental centers in Texas; consultant for many community services; and consultant to the states of Louisiana and Wyoming. I have been involved in professional training in Britain, Louisiana State University and now Queens College. It has always struck me that children and adults with developmental disabilities would have a better life, be happier, more autonomous and valued by other people if their staff and family members got a little help to do few simple things –interact positively and often, use contingent reinforcement accurately, teach a few simple skills and be more sensitive to preferences. I also believe that if these happened consistently, staff and family members would feel more competent. Dr. Lindsay Maffei-Almodovar, PhD, BCBA, LBA has worked in the field of education for 17 years. She is a New York State certified classroom teacher and has taught in general and special education classrooms and in home-based environments. Dr. Maffei-Almodovar has worked in a variety of roles, often involving both direct care service and staff support, development, and training. Her research focuses on caregiver training, specifically for direct care staff. Dr. Maffei-Almodovar has published staff training research in Behavior Analysis in Practice as well as a meta-analysis on staff training in the Review Journal on Autism and Developmental Disabilities. She also has published chapters in the Handbook of Evidence-Based Practice in Clinical Psychology the Handbook of Crisis Intervention and Developmental Disabilities. Dr. Maffei-Almodovar is currently the ABA Training & Development Coordinator of the QSAC Preschool, Whitestone Day School and Bronx Day School.