Evaluation of a self-instructional manual for conducting discrete-trials teaching with children with autism

Discrete-trials teaching (DTT) is commonly used to implement applied behavior analysis treatment for children with autism. The authors investigated a revised self-instructional manual for teaching university students to implement a 21-component DTT procedure to teach three tasks to confederates role-playing children with autism. Also, as a motivational contingency, for each DTT session in which a student scored at or above 90% accuracy, they received US$10. After an average of 4.5 hr to master the training manual, students' average DTT performance improved from 52% in baseline to 88% while teaching a confederate. Students averaged 77% DTT performance during subsequent generalization sessions with a child with autism.