This is an attempt to come up with the intermediate steps for moving from essentially traditional instructional situations toward realization of the ideal models or processes toward which most people in the field of performance/instructional technology are striving at any given time. (VT)

Discussed are the relative merits of two currently popular models of assessing children--the ability assessment and task analysis models. (CL)

Problems associated with current expertise in evaluation are discussed. Since evaluators are not always able to reliably achieve all levels of an evaluation project, these tasks are categorized into five levels of complexity. The author suggests a more accurate label for evaluators, "descriptive inquiry specialists," and includes guidelines for…

Third grade children were trained in component processes of problem solving strategies and were subsequently tested on ability to transfer the strategies to novel situations. Results indicate that, contrary to the Piagetian position, generalizable problem solving strategies were acquired at this age level. (Author/GO)

Investigated developmental trends in organization and free recall as they interact with spatial representation and blocking. Subjects were 695 children in grades 4, 6 and 8. Task factors appeared to interact with developmental trends in both organization and free recall. (GO)

Discusses the relevance of applied performance testing to classroom testing and outlines strategies that teachers may take in incorporating this testing method into their classroom activities. (Author/RK)

Nine trainable mentally retarded students (mean age 14.6 years) showed significant achievement gains over a control group in the skill areas of spatial perception, communication, welfare, health, and rules after participating in a behavioristic task analysis curriculum encouraging student decision making. (CL)

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)

The study investigated the cognitive processes underlying differences in computer competency between 29 intellectually gifted and 14 nongifted children. Findings are analyzed. (Author/MT)

The Sequential Prompt Reduction Technique (SPRT) was used with a 5-year-old severely retarded boy to develop his play skills. The SPRT has four components: identification of a desired terminal behavior, establishment of task sequences, delineation of prompts, and establishment of a prompt sequence. (DB)

Presents a situation by response model that enables trainers to organize and simplify the planning, training, and application of making appropriate response choices. The discussion covers the possible uses of the model and the necessary steps involved in the creation of the model. (CLB)

Three studies involving groups of four- to five-year-old children examined whether the discriminative properties of prompts are critical for establishing a difficult (septagon, octagon) discrimination through time delay. Results confirm superiority of multiple-stimulus, distinctive-feature prompts, implying that stimulus dimensions of prompts are…

Significant differences were found favoring skill-deficient second-graders (N=10) provided with repeated preteaching trials on a selected component skill of a subtraction algorithm before they worked the entire algorithm over students (N=10) who, from the beginning of training, received systematic instruction on working the entire algorithm.…

Investigates the problem young children have in constructing diagonals, noting that, on the whole, they can not make diagonals in the horizontal/vertical configuration. (HOD)

Two teachers were taught positioning and handling techniques using written task analyses, demonstrations by an occupational therapist, verbal and modeling prompts, corrective feedback, and praise. Training took place in the natural school environment, during school hours, and with students that the teachers taught. A functional relationship…