The primary purpose of this study was to evaluate the generalization of mands during functional communication training (FCT) and sign language training across functional contexts (i.e., positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement). A secondary purpose was to evaluate a training procedure based on stimulus control to teach manual signs. During…

A visual prompting procedure was instituted to train four mildly retarded elementary children to make purchases. Results indicated all students acquired coin skills taught during training, generalized skills to untrained items, and maintained skills over a four-week interval. Removal of visual prompts (fading) resulted in improvement for all…

Three severely handicapped adolescents were trained, using a picture prompt package, to complete three complex vocational or daily living tasks. All students required many training sessions to learn the first training task, but generalized their use of the pictures across settings without additional training. They needed substantially reduced…

Results of the study involving five moderately/severely retarded adolescents indicated that picture prompts can be successully used to promote both acquisition and generalization of performance, and the subsequent training time on a novel task was reduced when the use of picture prompts had been previously trained. (Author/CL)

Four trainable mentally retarded (TMR) children (6 to 9 years old) were taught a three piece assembly task. They were taught to verbalize the steps in the designated sequence before actually assembling the objects. (Author)

Seven mentally retarded adolescents received either verbal or nonverbal training on a shape-sorting task within a multiple baseline design. Both training sequences resulted in the successful acquisition of the target performance, but only the verbal training sequence facilitated generalization of performance to a novel shape and to a new…

Functional analyses of problem behavior for 4 young boys with developmental delays showed that problem behaviors were maintained by both negative and positive reinforcement. Functional communication training was conducted with one set of training stimuli in which the child's mother presented a work task in the family living room. Pretreatment…

Two moderately retarded adolescents received instruction on peer-training skills to teach a vocational task to classmates; subsequently, one peer trainer taught three peers to complete a complex vocational task. Results indicated that peer training can be an effective instructional procedure, with generalization occurring for both the trainers and…

Five young adults and three junior high students, with moderate mental retardation, were trained first to label characters verbally and then to enter the characters into computers, calculators, or checkbooks. Almost all subjects were able to generalize the use of verbal labels and key-entry skills across tasks and settings. (Author/JDD)

Tactile cues were provided to a 19-year-old deaf, blind, and mentally retarded individual to guide her performance on packaging tasks. The tactile prompts effectively guided her on the training task and were also generalized to novel tasks and cues. Continued use of the cues was necessary to maintain performance. (Author/JDD)