Analysis of acquisition of training programs presented online to parents by discrete trial training

The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of the parent training program offered online in gaining the ability to apply the method of the "Discrete Trial Training (DTT)"to mothers who have children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Furthermore, it aims to determine whether the instruction of the mothers lead to the acquisition of the targeted basic imitation skills by the children. The study was conducted with three children who were diagnosed with ASD, and their mothers. In the study, multiple probe design with probe conditions across subjects, one of the single-subject research models, was used. Within the scope of the research, a parent training program was developed in order to enable the mothers to apply the DTT method The Parent Training Program Offered Online is composed of two parts, which include teaching and coaching sessions. All study sessions were conducted online using the Skype, which allows face-to-face training. The independent variable of the study is the parent training program offered online. The dependent variables of the study are to teach imitation skills of mothers by following the DTT steps and the frequency of the exhibition basic imitation skills of children. Visual analysis and non-overlapping data analysis were used to analyze the data obtained for the effectiveness of the program. The findings of the research showed that the online and one-to-one parent training program offered online was effective on the acquisition of the DTT method application skills of the mothers in order to instruct basic imitation skills to their children with ASD, they are able to generalize these skills to different behaviors and maintain the skills to implement the DTT method that they gained after the completion of the program. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that children with ASD could exhibit basic imitation skills as a result of the implementation of the DTT method by the mothers and continue to acquire new imitation skills presented by the mothers with the DTT method after the initial program was completed. After the interviews with mothers in order to obtain the social validity data of the parent training program offered online, it was observed that mothers reported positive opinions about the program.