Using Telehealth to Program Generalization of Caregiver Behavior

Stokes and Baer, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10(2), 349–367 (1977) provided guidelines to assist practitioners with programming for the generalization of behavior change. Despite the suggestions provided in their seminal paper, generalization remains an often overlooked area within behavior analytic research and practice. In addition, few studies have described explicit strategies to program for the generalization of caregiver behaviors that are consistent with interventions to reduce child challenging behavior. In the current discussion, we describe how telehealth provides a potential avenue for practitioners to focus on generalization. Telehealth helps practitioners access behavior-change agents, materials, and contexts that they may not directly contact in educational and clinical environments. Using telehealth to target these areas early on, and throughout treatment for child challenging behavior, may facilitate more rapid treatment success and maintenance. We provide a case example to demonstrate the use of telehealth to program the generalization of a mother’s treatment plan implementation to reduce the severe challenging behavior of an adolescent. We report clinically and socially significant outcomes related to caregiver fidelity and challenging behavior reduction.