Efeitos do Behavioral Skills Training de forma remota em cuidadores de pessoas com Transtorno do Espectro do Autismo

Abstract

Behavioral Skills Training (BST) is a set of strategies used by Behavior Analysis to teach behaviors efficiently to different audiences, including caregivers of people with ASD. The training of these caregivers is justified for several reasons, among them, the difficulty of access to regular and specialized care for the public with ASD. The BST has some variations in its application, with remote training being a growing modality in recent years. The proposal for interventions remotely is not something new, but it has become essential since the pandemic triggered by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19. The pandemic situation implied extensive measures of social distancing and suspension of many of the face-to-face visits to the public with ASD. This work investigated whether BST is effective in remote training of caregivers to teach behavioral repertoires in people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The research objectives were (1) To verify if, from the BST training remotely, caregivers carried out a methodologically accurate teaching of verbal and non-verbal repertoires to people with ASD; (2) Assess whether there was generalization of methodologically accurate teaching in an environment different from the one in which the training took place; (3) Find out

if, from the intervention carried out by the caregivers, there was a change in the verbal and non- verbal repertoires of people with ASD and; (4) Assess caregivers' perception of their training

through self-report. A child with ASD and his two caregivers, in this case, his mother and father, participated in this research. The study took place remotely, through a free video call application. From the establishment of the repertoires, caregivers performed the assessment probe steps, true baseline, training with immediate and delayed feedback, assessment of generalization of accuracy in an environment different from the training, assessment of teaching maintenance and self-assessment. of caregivers' performance. With regard to teaching accuracy, the percentages of components of discrete trials accurately completed by the caregiver participants and the performance percentages of the person with ASD were analyzed. The results indicated an increase in the teaching accuracy of participating caregivers after BST training, generalization of accurate teaching in a less controlled environment and improvements in the child's repertoire from the interventions performed by the participating caregivers. With regard to social validity, the results indicated that the caregiver participants performed a positive self-assessment of their performance from the BST training remotely.