The effects of video scoring on treatment integrity of pivotal response treatment

The purpose of the current study was to examine the effects of staff video scoring on accurately implementing Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) to teach manding to children with autism. PRT is a child-directed behavior intervention based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA). A nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across four female staff was utilized. During the information only phase, performance across staff was highly variable, with one staff meeting, but not maintaining, criterion performance. During standard training, one participant met and maintained criterion performance, and therefore did not progress to the video scoring phase. The remaining staff were unable to meet or maintain criterion performance. Finally, during the video scoring phase, staff scored a variety of correct and incorrect video models. Results showed that although performance did not immediately improve, the scoring of multiple video exemplars lead to staff implementing PRT to criterion.