This paper identifies factors possibly influencing long-term effectiveness of social skills training with students having emotional or behavioral disorders. These include: lack of a sound conceptual framework, questionable social validity of target skills, controversies surrounding the nature of social skills deficits, imprecise assessment…

Discusses behavioral momentum and the general behavioral relation between the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtained in a given situation. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavioral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of evidence for the generality of behavioral momentum. (Author/CR)

This review of research discusses how children with autism may acquire equivalence classes after learning to supply a common oral name to each stimulus in a potential class. A proposed methodology for researching referent naming and class formation, analysis of stimulus classes, and generalization is offered. (CR)

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…

This study examined the contributions of instruction in goal setting and self-instruction on the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of a reading comprehension strategy by 47 students (grades 4-6) with learning disabilities. Results indicate that instruction in goal setting and self-instruction did not augment the comprehension…

Four individuals with agrammatic aphasia were trained to comprehend and produce filler-gap sentences with wh-movement. Two participants received treatment first on the least complex structure (who-questions), and 2 received treatment on the most complex form (object-relative constructions). Object-relative training resulted in robust…

Three studies explored whether children's tendency to extend object names on the basis of sameness of shape (shape bias) is specific to naming. Findings indicated that 2- and 3-year-olds showed shape bias both when asked to extend a novel name and when asked to select an object of the same kind as a target object; 3-year-olds also showed shape…

Contrasts students' presymbolic and symbolic procedures in generalizing activities. Uses the semiotic-cultural theoretical approach and focuses on the role of body, discourse, and signs when students refer to mathematical objects. Identifies types of generalizations and discusses a specific kind of rupture in the ostensive gestures and…

Evaluated effects of daily practice writing spelling words in sentences on generalization of spelling words to written work. Findings from mildly mentally handicapped students (n=4) aged 8 to 13 showed that generalization of the target spelling words to written work was improved by sentence writing. Follow-up condition indicated maintenance of…

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)

A study of the acquisition of mands (requests) and tacts (labels) relating to food and eating utensils in three individuals with severe mental retardation revealed that responses acquired as tacts did not readily occur as mands, but spontaneous manding was developed through a stimulus control transfer procedure. (MSE)

Twenty single-subject investigations on early language interventions were reviewed. Treatments, including direct reinforcement of verbalization, mand-model, and time delay, were generally successful. Specific generalization training procedures were also supported. (Author/DB)

Four toddlers with mental retardation were studied in the context of a multiple baseline across subjects design. Results supported the use of a modified version of milieu teaching to increase intentional requesting by these children. Increased intentional requesting was generalized to interactions with mothers. (Author/DB)