Recommendations for achieving generalized instructional outcomes often overlook the capacity for generative learning. We sought to demonstrate how decontextualized and logically organized instruction would lead to derived and contextually appropriate recombinative generalization and arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARRing) in…

Measuring treatment fidelity is an essential step in research designed to increase the use of evidence-based practices. For parent-implemented communication interventions, measuring the implementation of the teaching and coaching provided to the parents is as critical as measuring the parents' delivery of the intervention to the child. Both levels…

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…

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether individuals with intellectual disabilities would emit untrained speaker responses (i.e., signed tacts and mands) after being taught listener behaviors. Listener relations were trained via an automated matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure. Following mastery, the emergence of signed tacts,…

This study compared the total amount of training time and total number of trial blocks for individuals with severe developmental disabilities to acquire mands under control of unconditioned establishing operations and mands under control of transitive conditioned establishing operations for manual sign and for the Picture Exchange Communication…

Six autistic children were trained to use their sign repertoire to make spontaneous requests of adults. Training consisted of imitative prompting, fading, and differential reinforcement, with aspects of incidental teaching. Ss displayed increased rate and variety of spontaneous sign requests and generalization of spontaneity across different…

An 11-year-old nonverbal boy diagnosed autistic was trained to communicate wants and needs with manual signs. Sign training in the corner of the classroom had no effect on generalization or maladaptive responses, while training in the natural setting was functionally related both to use of signs across the school day and dramatic reductions in…

A program to involve institutional staff in developing manual sign language skills with six profoundly retarded persons was evaluated. Results indicated that all participating residents learned to communicate with signing during structured interactions on their living unit and the skills maintained during follow-up assessments ranging from 39 to…

A 15-year-old with severe handicaps who exhibited minimal intentional communicative behavior was taught to discriminately encode three classes of communicative functions. Results suggest that pragmatic discriminations can be established early in a sequence of communication intervention. The S used requesting and rejecting spontaneously in other…

Results indicated that the two treatment conditions (speech and speech-sign) did not differ significantly for either learning or generalization with 10 Down's Syndrome three-seven year olds. The data did, however, indicate that individual patterns of acquisition were evident among the children. Caution is advised concerning automatic adoption or…

The authors address several issues pertinent to designing environmentally based total communication assessment and training programs for language delayed hearing children for whom oral language training alone is inadequate. (Author/CL)

Five nonverbal severely mentally retarded and three nonverbal deaf children learned to use a sign-rehearsal strategy in one of two memory tasks. Generalization to a simpler task was accomplished for two Ss trained in a more complex task. (Author/CL)

Two experiments involving a seven-year-old trainable developmentally retarded boy demonstrated the effectiveness of an integrative language training model on the S's functional use of sign language. The model relied on delay and incidental teaching. (CL)

Four nonverbal autistic boys (ages 11-16) were successfully taught sign language action-object phrases following an intervention composed of prompting, fading, stimulus rotation, and differential reinforcement. The skill generalized to new situations. (Author/DB)

The study assessed effects of a transfer of stimulus control procedure on acquisition and cross-setting generalization of manual signs with four profoundly retarded young adults. Results showed that individuals acquired the trained signs and maintenance and generalization across settings and persons occurred but was highly variable between and…