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. 2024 Jan;57(1):55-70.
doi: 10.1002/jaba.1035. Epub 2023 Nov 8.

Caregiver involvement in applied behavior-analytic research: A scoping review and discussion

Jessica L Becraft  1   2 , Samantha L Hardesty  1   2 , Kissel J Goldman  1 , Lesley A Shawler  3 , Matthew L Edelstein  1   2 , Phillip Orchowitz  1
Affiliations

Caregiver involvement in applied behavior-analytic research: A scoping review and discussion

Jessica L Becraft et al. J Appl Behav Anal. 2024 Jan.

Abstract

We conducted a scoping review to characterize the role of caregiver involvement in behavior-analytic research. We reviewed eight behavioral-learning journals from 2011-2022 for works that included children or caregivers as participants and characterized caregiver involvement as passive (implications for caregivers, input, social validity) and active (implementation, caregiver behavior, training, caregiver-collected data). The review identified 228 studies, and almost all (96.1%; n = 219) involved caregivers in some capacity; 94.3% (n = 215) had passive involvement (26.8% had only passive involvement; n = 61), 69.3% (n = 158) had active involvement (1.8% had only active involvement; n = 4), and 3.9% (n = 9) had neither passive nor active involvement. Involvement generally increased over publication years. The most common types of involvement were implications for caregivers, implementation, and input; caregiver-collected data were rare. We propose considerations when engaging caregivers in research and suggest new avenues of inquiry related to caregivers' treatment objectives and social validity, treatment implementers, and caregiver-collected data.

Keywords: applied behavior analysis; caregivers; clinical endpoints; parents; scoping review.

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References

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