General case programing can enhance generalization in individuals with severe disabilities. Making the procedure effective involves: considering activities appropriate for general case programing, selecting examples for teaching and probe testing, determining order of presentation of examples, and determining location of instruction. A list of…

The first section of this book presents an overview and history of the problem of skill generalization among students with severe handicaps. Researchers review empirically based strategies proposed to remedy the problem, discuss the characteristics and foundations of decision rules which can be used to determine which strategy will work best in a…

Research on spelling performance of learning disabled students is reviewed and a case study cited to show that LD students can learn transferrable information about spelling through a procedure incorporating imitation, modeling, and practice. (CL)

This paper presents an overview of the Direct Instruction principles and guidelines that define general-case programing and then reviews recent research findings related to general-case instruction with learners with severe disabilities. (Author/DB)

This report discusses four different types of instruction which enable learning disabled or low achieving students to learn well enough to transfer the skill to a novel situation. After asserting that generalization depends on systematic instruction, the paper describes the four procedures: (1) teacher-directed generalization; (2) direct…

This document is intended to help school psychologists promote more effective generalization of school intervention programs for education students. Concepts (including transfer of training and response generalization) are reviewed. An approach is described which analyzes problem behavior according to its major controlling variables (skills or…

Research is reviewed that employs delay procedures with the severely handicapped as a means of shifting stimulus control. The parameters of delay procedures are delineated, including prerequisite student and teacher considerations, types of responses, levels of delay, single versus blocked trials, and basic delay methodology. (Author)

Suggestions are made for generalizing prevocational and vocational skills of mentally retarded students across settings and conditions, across persons, across time, and across materials. (CL)

Four preschool children with autism played "Follow-the-Leader," in which a normal peer demonstrated and physically prompted a variety of actions and object manipulations that defined the activity. Following training, all four subjects generalized their imitative skill to a new setting involving new actions and object manipulations. (Author/JDD)

A review of 25 studies found that demonstrations of successful generalization of skills by persons with profound mental handicaps were characterized by: several trained exemplars, trained behaviors likely to be reinforced in natural settings by natural consequences, use of training stimuli common to the generalization setting, and training in…

Learners must acquire a general strategic orientation in their problem solving, to determine what counts as relevant information in problematic situations. A dynamic systems approach is called for in determining whether general or context-specific instructions are needed to promote transfer of relevant information to novel conditions. (Author/JDD)

A school psychologist implemented a practicum designed to increase the prosocial behaviors of children attending a preschool center that integrated handicapped (N=26) and nonhandicapped (N=22) children. Observations had indicated that many of the children at the center were unable to work and play with others without hitting and getting hurt in…

Fifteen students, age 13-21, with moderate to profound mental retardation received shopping skills training in either 1 or 3 department stores. A study of operational behaviors, social behaviors, number of settings in which criterion performance was achieved, and number of sessions required to achieve criterion found no significant differences…

This study of 75 gifted students in grades 6-8 found that the group receiving Creative Problem Solving training with transfer strategies infused had a higher percentage of students applying the strategies to problems out of the context of the training sessions, compared to control group students and students receiving traditional training.…

Part of a collection of papers commissioned by Foundations, a career development project sponsored by the National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID), the paper reviews research on transfer of knowledge and skills from one situation to another. A transfer classification scheme is proposed based on the notion that an individual's knowledge can…