Avaliando procedimentos de treino de profissionais na aplicação do ABLA-R (Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities Revised)

Abstract

The ABLA-R (Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities Revised) is a useful test for assessing the discriminative abilities of individuals with autism and other developmental disorders. The studies that evaluated the teaching of the application of the most recent version of the test presented opposite results: indicating the efficacy of the test self-instructional manual or the need for additional training components. Furthermore, these studies did not evaluate the effect of feedback in training, or the effect of training in to teach professionals to apply ABLA-R. This study evaluated the effect of three training components on ABLA-R teaching for six professionals that working with people with developmental disorders: ABLA-R self-instructional manual, video feedback and role-play. Using a multiple probe design between pairs of participants, the efficacy of each component was evaluated separately and the efficiency of different combinations of these three components was evaluated. No component when used as the first training resulted in an accurate application of ABLA-R. In turn, the three training sequences of the three components used in the study proved to be effective in establishing accurate performance in applying the test to a confederate and a child with developmental disorder. The combination of the self-instructional manual with the video feedback resulted in the best performances. The importance of feedback for ABLA-R application training and ways to integrate manual and feedback use into more efficient forms of the test application training were discussed.