Self instruction and external instructional methods were compared with 19 mentally retarded adults. Results indicated that participants receiving verbal self-instructional training in the complex sequencing task achieved and sustained a higher level of performance than participants receiving external instruction. (Author/DB)

The study found that simulation instruction on two representative teaching examples for each of two job task sequences resulted in concurrent generalized performance by four severely retarded adults. (Author/DB)

The study evaluated a reinforcement theory of stereotyped behavior with six autistic students (ages 9-16). Three students evidenced decreases in stereotypy and increases in responding in the presence of usual reinforcers, while the other three students required external suppression of stereotypy before increases in responding were shown.…

Two experiments examined the reinforcing value of response contingent sensory events consisting of combinations of visual, auditory, and vibratory stimulation with 10 nonambulatory profoundly mentally retarded individuals. Results indicated that systematically varying a multimodal sensory event is an effective way to identify positive reinforcers…

Comparison of two response prompting procedures--progressive time delay and system of least prompts--to teach three severely handicapped students (ages 8-16) identification of functional objects indicated that both procedures were effective but that the time delay procedure required fewer sessions, trials, errors to criterion, and minutes of…

In an A-B design with replication, the efficacy of a behavioral training program for teaching two mildly retarded six-year-old children intermittent self-catheterization skills was demonstrated. Component skills were task-analyzed and trained via a graduated prompting procedure. (Author/DB)

Matrix training strategies were used to teach three severely mentally retarded children syntactic rules for combining known words into two- and three-word utterances. Training only a limited number of responses was sufficient to promote recombinative generalization in the trained modality and transfer to untrained responses in the opposite…

Evaluation of a protocol for assessing leisure choice skills of seven older adults with severe disabilities involved either presentation with pairs of objects or pictures representing choices. Five participants demonstrated skills in making choices using objects and two demonstrated making choices using pictures. (Author/DB)

Results of withdrawing instructional components and trainers after a previous study using picture recipe cards to teach three mentally retarded adults to prepare meals indicated (from self reports and roommate reports) maintenance of trained skills during a 10-month period. (Author/DB)

The study demonstrated the utility of the alternating treatments design in determining the most efficacious language training approach with mentally retarded children. Oral communication, total communication, and modified total communication were each used with two children in three trials. The preferred approach was consistent within each subject…

The study assessed a program involving distinctive-feature prompts for teaching four educable mentally retarded children (ages 7-9) to use appropriate arithmetical operations with multicomponent pictorial problems. Results indicated the program was effective with all subjects. (Author/DB)

A teaching approach which used general case procedures for selecting teaching examples was effective in teaching four severely retarded high school students basic telephone skills. Trained skills generalized to nontrained telephone situations and telephone use was continued (at 18 months after training) as a part of each student's lifestyle.…

Evaluation of two methods, Stimulus Manipulation and Delay Feedback Only, for teaching four mildly handicapped students (ages 9-13) to solve missing minuend problems found both methods to be effective. However, systematic differences in error rate and long-term retention were observed, favoring the Stimulus Manipulation procedure. (Author/DB)

Evaluation of a program which taught six severely mentally retarded individuals (ages 8-25) to sign interactively with each other found participants showed increased signing skills in a training play situation, generalized use of these skills in a second play situation, and maintained the trained skills over a 2 to 4 month period. (Author/DB)

Ratings on the acceptability, intrusiveness, restrictiveness, and efficacy of 18 commonly used interventions for decelerating behaviors were obtained from 58 special educators of severely handicapped students. Results suggested a lack of confidence in intervention efficacy and a lack of discriminant validity for the constructs of restrictiveness…