Examination of Parent Understanding of YETI Evidence Based Practices Kyle Dyrud, Carson MacIntyre, & Lacey DeSalles Department of Psychology Table 1 Introduction Validity: All three coders involved in this study were psychology majors with and all were participants in the same research lab. This opens up the possibility for bias as pre-conceived ideas and information from various classes and even the research lab itself could possibly work its way into the coding process. To account for any bias that may occur all participants coded the information separately from each other. After each round of coding, average coder reliability was calculated. An average percentage of 90 or above is nearly always acceptable and 80 and greater is acceptable in most all situations (Neuendorf, 2002). For questions 5-7, the average coder reliability was 89.44% and for questions 8-9 it was 92.46%, suggesting that the data collected was acceptable for use. Parent Knowledge Of EBP Related Concepts Used In YETI (1) Little Knowledge (2) Moderate Knowledge (3) Advanced Knowledge Positive Behavior Supports 1 Reinforcement 2 Social Narrative Video Modeling Visual Scheduling 4 3 Totals: 6 9 Youth Engagement Through Intervention (YETI) is a group-based treatment that integrates evidence-based practices (EBPs) to enhance social skills for children with autism. In a previous study, parents whose children participated in YETI were surveyed post treatment and it was found that they have a limited understanding of EBP’s and were unsure as to how to implement EBP’s within the home (Shindorf, 2016). Studies show parent training has been found more effective than parent education as training implements specific strategies to be applied in practice by parents ,whereas education only provides basic information about the topic (Bearss et al,. 2015). Thus, further research is needed to understand how best to prepare parents in using EBPs in the home setting. There were two primary goals of this study: 1) To examine parent’s understanding of EBP’s using existing data collected from Shindorf (2016). 2) Based on these data, propose a parent program in which parents would be trained in using EBP’s for their child with ASD in the home setting. Results Discussion and Implications After analyzing data collected from coding questions 5-7 of the PABI Interview, it was found that the majority of parents showed little to moderate knowledge regarding parent knowledge of EBP related concepts used in YETI. Very few were found to have advanced knowledge of these practices. This suggests that further measures need to be taken in order for parents to gain a greater understanding of the evidence based practices utilized when treating their children within the YETI program. Data collected from the coding of questions 8-9 of the PABI showed that parents felt they lacked the adequate knowledge to practice YETI-related evidence based practices within the home setting. This was found to be the result of lack of communication and interaction between clinicians and parents. To improve upon this lack of understanding parents suggested that some form of parent training, performed by a clinician involved in the YETI program, be employed. A parent training program would allow for better education and understanding of the evidence based practices used in YETI that they are to make use of within their homes. This would most likely lead to an improved application of YETI practices. In turn, better understanding and enhanced integration of these concepts into the children’s daily lives would result. Future research should focus on developing the most effective form of parent training for teaching social skills to children with ASD and related disorders. This training should focus specifically on parental understanding of not only how the methods are used but why they are used as well. Method Participants: Participants in this study included 10 parents of children with a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder, the Montana special education eligibility category of Autism, or a related disorder. Content for this study was taken from the Parent Acceptability and Barrier Identification (PABI) Interview previously recorded by Shindorf (2016). Parents were interviewed following the conclusion of YETI summer camp, regarding the potential barriers to the generalization of YETI in the home setting. Procedure: In this study, five sections of the PABI were examined, each section referring to a single question. Within each question were responses from the 10 parents whose children participated in YETI. The following are the individual steps we proceeded in: Step 1: Questions 5-7, regarding parent’s knowledge of YETI based ebp’s were coded into pre-determined themes. Step 2: A second round of coding was then completed, detailing parent knowledge (Little Knowledge, Moderate Knowledge, or Advanced Knowledge) of the given themes. Step 3: Questions 8-9, having to do with barriers to treatment and parent’s suggestions for improvement, were then coded. Step 4: A second round of coding then took place on Q. 8-9 in which common themes regarding possible barriers (Figure 2) and suggested improvements (Figure 3) were detailed. Acknowledgements The researchers would like to offer gratitude and thanks to Zachary Shindorf, M.S., and Olivia Holter for their support, Also, the researchers would like to give a very special thank you to Dr. Anisa Goforth for being a wonderful mentor, and for the incredible support she has provided throughout our undergraduate experience.