Generalization Programming and Behavioral ConsultationBehavioral consultation is a frequently used method for providing services to special education children within the school system (Gutkin & Curtis, 1999). One of the justifications for using consultation as a service delivery model in schools is its potential to be preventative; consultation aids a teacher in effective problemsolving and teaches specific behavioral skills to solve classroom problems. Many researchers have suggested that one of the most promising elements of consultation is that these skills, once learned, can be applied by the teacher to other children . Meyers (1985) highlighted this concept by stating, "...consultation is viewed as a technique with the potential for influencing the behavior of the target child, other children in the child's classroom, and similar children which the teacher may work with in the future" (p. 3). This potential benefit is directly in line with Caplan's original concept that consultation can multiply the effectiveness of highly trained service providers by increasing the skills of lesser trained service providers. Later Meyers (1985) stated, "…The potential value of consultation lies in its ability to have this sort of generalized effect since this allows the consultant to influence more children than would be possible with a model based on one-to-one delivery of service to the child (p. 3)."This goal of consultation suggests that teachers who have experienced consultation have the potential to independently use the problem-solving techniques and interventions modeled in consultation. In theory, these teachers will be more prepared to teach other children experiencing academic and behavioral difficulties. Teachers with consultation experience also have the potential to be a valuable resource in the school for other teachers. Teachers with increased problem-solving skills should be able to apply those skills when other teachers need assistance with a problem student. While these are important goals, there remains much work to be done toward achieving generalization of teacher consultee repertoires so as to reap schoolwide benefits. This paper applies generalization programming tactics from Stokes and Baer (1977) and Stokes and Osnes' (1989) articles to training teacher consultees so as to foster generalization of their intervention skills. Attention to generalization will support the realization of the full benefits of school consultation.
In the school system, school psychologist serves a role as consultant to teachers in regard to children's behavioral problems (Bergan & Kratchowill, 1990). The defining feature of children's success is plan implementation (Bergan & Kratochwill, 1990). For school psychologists, ensuring consistent and accurate implementation of behavior strategies and tactics is the defining feature of successful treatment (Piersel & Gutkin, 1983). Failure to implement is commonly referred to as treatment integrity. Based on our previous review of the research (Cautilli, Tillman, Axelrod, & Hineline, 2005), we concluded that treatment integrity goes beyond successful training procedures to the need for a behavioral analysis of the consulting relationship-in particular the area referred to as resistance. We propose that effective consultation consists of a repertoire of skills based on principles of behavior analysis for promoting effective action within the consultation relationship. However, this model is seriously hindered by the lack of such a functional analysis. This study presents an experimental analogue of resistance in the consultation process. Using an ABAB reversal design, the experimenter measured the ecological effects of teacher resistant behaviors on consultant therapeutic behavior. The results of the study found that participants decreased therapeutic questioning in response to consultee's resistance. In addition, teacher resistance also led to increased missed sessions by the consultant and greater negative perceptions of the consultee by the consultant.
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