Training Family Therapists: An Experimental Analysis

Abstract

This study implemented and evaluated a training program (a written manual, videotaped models, rehearsal, role plays, and performance feedback) designed to teach five subjects the skills to become effective family therapists. The study examined the therapists' use of three target behaviors: instructing, informing, and praising. The therapists, each paired with a parent and a preschool-aged child (2 1/2-4 1/2 yr old), were trained in the clinic to use, and to teach to the parents, several behavioral skills (e.g., praising, planned ignoring, and time-out) relevant to teaching children compliance to parental instructions. A multiple-baseline design across triads (therapist/parent/child) demonstrated that after the training program was instituted, the therapists increased their rates of instructing, praising, and informing the parents; all parents increased attention to compliance, decreased attention to noncompliance, and increased rates of praise to their children; and all children increased their compliance and decreased their noncompliance.

Siblings' Use of Milieu Teaching at Home

“…This sibling was not able to reach the criteria of at least 10 episodes to elicit the target utterance from her brother in the play sessions until halfway through the intervention condition, suggesting she may have had more difficulty learning the techniques initially. Her age and related skills may have affected her ability to apply the intervention procedures as found in Isaacs et al (1982). Both children in Dyad C talked much less during the snack setting than they did during the play sessions.…”

“…Siblings were selected who were at least 8 years of age because previous research suggests that training younger children to carry out instructional techniques can be difficult (Isaacs, Embry, & Baer, 1982). Interactions during the instructional sessions were more likely to be similar to naturally occurring teaching interactions when the sibling was chronologically older than the target child.…”

Using Bug-in-the-Ear Feedback in Clinical Supervision: Preliminary Evaluations

“…A more recent review did find some empirical work in this area and concluded that &dquo;there is evidence that various forms of family therapy training can produce an increase in trainees' cognitive and intervention skills, although the latter is less certain because intervention skills have never been measured in actual therapy sessions (Avis & Sprenkle, 1990, p. 260, italics added). This italicized remark is not strictly true, because Isaacs, Embry, and Baer (1982) conducted one of the few empirical investigations on the treatment validity of training provided to family therapist trainees, demonstrating that education in family therapy produced improvements in the trainees' clinical skills. More important, these increased clinical skills were found to result in improvements in the parents' acquisition of behavior-management procedures and subsequent improvements in the problematic child behaviors that originated the requests for assistance.…”

Competence in Aspects of Behavioral Treatment and Consultation: Implications for Service Delivery and Graduate Training

“…Curricula for doctoral training have been proposed (Chase & Wylie, 1985;Michael, 1980) and students themselves, especially at the graduate level, may specifically seek and expect competency training (Isaacs, Embry, & Baer, 1982).…”

“…One pertinent study (Isaacs et al, 1982) described a program ofvideotaped instruction and role-play practice that enabled professionals both to acquire child management skills and to teach parents those skills. However, both sets of skills were taught concurrently.…”