A study evaluated effects of providing sampling opportunities on preference development of two adults with severe disabilities. Opportunities for sampling drink items were presented, followed by choice opportunities for selections at the sampling site and a non-sampling site. Participants developed a definite response consistency in selections at…

Children (n=27; ages 9-14) with moderate mental retardation received social skills training using a formal or informal metacognitive strategy approach. Both approaches resulted in acquisition of targeted skills and generalization to another setting. Subjects outperformed chronological age peers and scored as well as mental age peers. (Author/JDD)

A study investigated the use of self-modeling to facilitate generalization and maintenance of the reduction of self-stimulation in a six-year-old boy with intellectual disability. The study used a videotape self-as-a-model method to successfully decrease hand flapping. (CR)

Prompting videos were developed and successfully used to train four adolescents with moderate intellectual disabilities the operation of a videorecorder and personal computer. Training transferred to another teacher, another setting, and, with additional training, to another type of videorecorder and personal computer. (Author/DB)

A study compared a 4 s constant time delay and a simultaneous prompting procedure on teaching receptively identifying animals to three children (ages 7-10) with mild/moderate mental retardation. Both procedures were effectively implemented by sibling tutors, simultaneous prompting was more efficient, and constant time delay resulted in more…

A study of 13 individuals (ages 15-37) with mental retardation evaluated the effectiveness of an education and skills training program to reduce risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection in people with mental retardation. Results indicated an increase in HIV/AIDS knowledge and risk-reduction skills. Recommendations for skill maintenance…

A procedure involving prompting, repetition of the correct response, and reinforcement was effectively used to teach three adults with profound mental retardation gestural yes-no responding. However, reliable generalization of the individuals' responses across settings or persons did not occur even after generality training. (Author/DB)

Social skills training practices for persons with mental retardation are summarized, along with reasons for their lack of maintenance and generalization. A cognitive-behavioral definition and model of social competence and social skills are described, which unify social learning concepts with recent research and practice and focus on their utility…

A process social skills training approach was implemented and evaluated with two high school students having mild intellectual disabilities and social skills deficits. The intervention package was successful in promoting generalization of targeted social skills from the training setting to the classroom for both students. Participants had…

This study found that, following a systematic fading of putting guides, three adults with severe/profound mental retardation increased accuracy in making putts during posttraining assessments on a practice green. Results also maintained at, or increased above, posttraining levels at a two-week maintenance check and were generalized to a local golf…

This study investigated the effects of using general education peers to instruct four students (age 8) with mental retardation in board game skills. Results found that the peer-mediated intervention produced an increase in interactions between students with and without mental retardation and that these increases generalized across social…

A study investigated generalization effects of script-based intervention in increasing semantic relation skills among four Korean preschoolers with language disorders. The script-based intervention was effective at increasing all participants' use of semantic relation skills and generalizing the acquired semantic relation skills across non-trained…

Three students (ages 14-16) with mild mental retardation were taught to use an auditory prompting system to complete the vocational tasks of cleaning a bathroom in a classroom setting. Students acquired the skills and generalized them to a novel setting. There were mixed results concerning maintenance of the skills. (Contains 10 references.)…

This study investigated the effectiveness of teacher-implemented naturalistic language intervention within play activities for four elementary students with moderate mental disabilities. While students showed significant increases in numbers of spontaneous language targets used during the intervention condition, they demonstrated minimal…

Three young adults with moderate to severe mental retardation were taught conversation skills using task analysis and cognitive strategies training procedures. Results show that the participants generalized the conversation skills learned under the cognitive strategies condition and that the cognitive strategies training allowed more normalized…