Alarmingly, nearly half of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) engage in behaviour that causes separation from caregivers. More than half of these children go missing for a concerning duration of time and/or enter into dangerous situations. Caregivers often do not feel prepared to address these serious concerns. This study evaluated the effectiveness of behaviour skills training (BST) for teaching caregivers how to also use BST in conjunction with a tactile prompt to teach their children with ASD help-seeking behaviour. Participants included five caregiver-child dyads. Children were diagnosed with ASD and were between the ages of 5–10 years. A non-concurrent multiple probe design across three dyads with a concurrent replication across an additional two dyads was used to evaluate whether the BST procedure increased child safety responses when separated from caregivers in store settings. Child behaviours were measured using a 3-step help-seeking behaviour chain: (1) calling out for their caregiver in a louder than conversational voice, (2) locating a store employee, and (3) informing the employee that they were lost. All children met mastery criteria (a safety response score of 3 across two consecutive trials), and four of the caregivers were able to successfully fade the tactile prompting device in the natural environment. This study contributes to the limited empirical research on caregiver implemented safety training using BST to teach help-seeking behaviour to children with ASD.

令人震惊的是，近一半的自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 儿童从事导致与照顾者分离的行为。这些儿童中有一半以上失踪了一段时间和/或陷入危险境地。看护人往往觉得没有准备好解决这些严重的问题。本研究评估了行为技能训练 (BST) 在教看护人如何结合触觉提示使用 BST 来教他们的孩子进行 ASD 求助行为的有效性。参与者包括五个照顾者-儿童二人组。儿童被诊断出患有 ASD，年龄在 5-10 岁之间。使用跨三个二元组的非并发多探针设计以及跨另外两个二元组的并发复制来评估 BST 程序在与商店环境中的护理人员分开时是否增加了儿童安全反应。使用 3 步求助行为链测量儿童行为：(1) 用比对话更响亮的声音呼叫他们的看护人，(2) 找到商店员工，以及 (3) 通知员工他们迷路了。所有儿童都符合掌握标准（在连续两次试验中的安全反应评分为 3 分），其中四名护理人员能够在自然环境中成功地淡化触觉提示装置。这项研究有助于对照顾者实施的安全培训使用 BST 向 ASD 儿童教授求助行为的有限实证研究做出贡献。