Errorless compliance training: Used by a researcher and teacher aides to increase compliance of children under five years of age in either the home or education setting

Abstract

Errorless Compliance Training (ECT) was developed as a nonaversive alternative approach to traditional compliance training (Ducharme Worling,1994; Ducharme, Popynick, Pontes, Steele,1996). Experiment 1 aimed to see if this method could be used to increase the compliance of three children aged four, with two of the participants‟ treatments taking place in the family home and the third taking place in an early education setting. Results showed that all participants had increases in the level of compliance to specific requests. Child 1 and 3 completed all phases of the training and showed significant increases in compliance to Level 4 requests compared to that of the baseline data. Child 2 reached Phase 3 only, however, he still had significant increases in compliance in Phase 2 and 3 of the treatment. The results suggest that Errorless Compliance Training was successful in increasing compliance with these participants, who were four years of age, in an early education setting as well as in home settings. Experiment 2 aimed to increase compliance with two children in a primary school setting, by teaching the teacher aides working with the children Errorless Compliance Training following Ducharme‟s (1996) procedure. Replication of Ducharme‟s Errorless Compliance Training findings to increased compliance was not possible. A range of issues meant the Observational Probability Analyses were not completed in the time frame and treatment could not begin. Experiment 2‟s results suggest that Errorless Compliance Training may not be a treatment that can be easily implemented by teacher aides within the school setting. One reason for this is that the Observation Probability Analysis requires all requests to be delivered each session, which takes ii approximately two hours, therefore the sessions are not able to be completed within the time restraints of the teacher aides.