Training a Parent to Teach Communication Skills

The purpose of the present study was to train a mother to teach communication skills to her retarded adolescent child. The presenting complaint of the mother was that her child had poor conversational skills. The mother was seen for six sessions in a clinic setting and was trained to teach two communication skills (encourages to talk, on-topic questions) to her daughter. The mother conducted training and assessment sessions in the home. Training and assessment sessions were tape recorded and subsequently examined by the experimenters. Use of a multiple baseline design across skills indicated that training of each skill was associated with increases in that skill. The increases were maintained at a two-month follow-up.