[ The Situation ]

When we met Autism Spectrum Therapies (AST) in early 2010, the senior clinical team was responsible for providing 84.5 hours of training to 300 new employees each year.

Although AST’s ambitious training plan was very effective, it was costly and time consuming. AST decided to utilize Autism Training Solutions’ (ATS) online training to decrease new employee training costs and increase the senior clinical team’s ability to provide in field staff support.

                             Now we faced the question –

“How do we overhaul the new employee training program for an

organization as large as Autism Spectrum Therapies?”

[ The Solution ]

Because no two agencies are the same, we spent time creating a custom training solution to align with Autism Spectrum Therapies' (AST) unique needs. The implementation process consisted of seven distinct phases - Evaluation, Design, Train, Implementation, Data Collection, Analyze and Retool-that led to two different training iterations.   

Fig. 1  Implementation is easy with ATS

[ Our First Stab - Iteration #1 ]

After evaluation, custom design and management training, AST deployed the first iteration of Autism Training Solutions’ (ATS) new employee program - a model that blended classroom discussion, role-play and in field training with ATS’ online training modules.

By using the ATS online program, Autism Spectrum Therapies freed 28.5 hours for clinical leadership each month to focus on in field staff and client needs – adding 342 hours each year!

During the first six months, AST collected data from the organization’s leadership team and new employees to gauge the effectiveness of our online training program inside their organization.
 
 

While much of the feedback was positive, the first iteration was not optimal for clinical leadership or trainees due to the “upfront” design that required new employees to complete all of the online training before their first day in the office. The two major nuisances -
 
     1. Information Overload  Due to the number of hours and different curriculum assigned upfront, many of AST’s new employees found it difficult to comprehend before stepping foot into the office. “They were flooded with information before the first on-site training day. Without discussion and role-play, new employees could not build on all of the required ABA concepts,” stated Andrea Ridgway, Vice President of Clinical Services at Autism Spectrum Therapies.

     2. Cheating the System   Because initial training was long (and humans are prone to procrastination), a small number of new employees were trying to quickly finish their required training by cheating the system and guessing throughout the two online assessments – a serious issue our technology team immediately responded to by building an application to detect fraudulent actions on the training platform.

[ If at First You Don't Succeed, Try Again. Iteration #2 ]

Armed with data (we are indeed behaviorists!), our two teams worked together to retool the system. By reducing the number of upfront training hours required before their first office visit from sixteen hours to eight hours,

Autism Spectrum Therapies was able to create an optimal new employee training solution.

This small change still enabled their senior clinical team to return the feild an extra 312 hours each year while ensuring training effectiveness for new hires.

Fig. 4 Retooling the system in order to create optimal training.

The Autism Spectrum Therapies' team continues to collect data. During classroom or invivo sessions, the team conducts surveys and gives pop-quizzes to understand just how well new employees are digesting information learned online. Brittany Wolfson, Director of Training and Development at AST, stated “After training with ATS, our new employees are more familiar with vocabulary and techniques when they begin our invivo training.”

[ The Future ]

Now that the new employee training process is running smoothly across all regions, the AST leadership team is beginning to utilize other ATS features, including free CEUs for BCBAs and free parent training seats.

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