Three children (ages 4-5) with autism and mental retardation were treated for deficits in self-initiated speech. A treatment package employing visual cue fading was compared with a graduated time-delay procedure. Both treatments included training multiple self-initiated verbalizations using multiple therapists and settings. Both treatments were…

This study of the effects of intensive multisensory speech training on the speech production of a profoundly hearing-impaired child (age nine) found that the addition of Visual Phonics hand cues did not result in speech production gains. All six target phonemes were generalized to new words and maintained after the intervention was discontinued.…

This study examined 40 articles published in the "American Journal on Mental Retardation" or the "Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps" (JASH) from 1976-78 and 1986-88. Both journals published low numbers of articles with ecological validity in the late 1970s, but JASH subsequently increased…

Discusses how teachers learn to teach through direct experiences and participation as students and beginning teachers. Direct experience provides cause-and-effect inferences about what works; as time goes on, teachers use the knowledge acquired to improve their teaching. Strategies for school improvement work in much the same way. (SM)

Twenty-one articles employing peer-mediated interventions to promote social skills of children and adolescents with behavioral disorders were analyzed on their experimental, procedural, and generalization components. The review found that peer-mediated approaches produce immediate positive treatment effects and have contributed to the…

In vivo instruction consisting of a constant time-delay procedure used in combination with multiple exemplars of strangers, lures, supervisors, and sites was used to teach three adults with severe mental handicaps a generalized response to the lures of strangers. Participants acquired the response during training, but transfer to probe trials was…

These reflections on EC 604 101 (a study of teaching adults with severe disabilities a generalized response to the lure of strangers) provide background information on the research methodology used, outline limitations of the study, discuss ethical issues in safety research, and examine ways to make teaching a generalized response more effective.…

This study used a self-management treatment package to teach three children with autism to play appropriately in the absence of a treatment provider. Results indicated appropriate play skills were learned and generalized to new settings, and two of the children maintained gains at one-month followup. In addition, self-stimulatory behaviors…

This study demonstrated that written specific task analyses combined with end-of-trial performance feedback were effective in promoting the acquisition and generalization of functional cleaning tasks by 11 young adults with mild disabilities. Performance transferred to natural discriminative stimuli. (Author/DB)

A modified multiple-probe design was used to teach seven students (ages six to eight) with moderate or severe mental retardation appropriate strategies for responding to inappropriate invitations from strangers. Six of the students displayed improvement in self-protective skills, which generalized to a nontraining situation and across abductors.…

Sixteen studies of self-management with students who have behavioral disorders are reviewed. Procedures involving self-instruction, self-evaluation, self-recording, and combinations are examined. Results indicate the effectiveness of the procedures in promoting social and academic behaviors and the need to systematically program for…

Discusses issues and problems concerning concept development among students in elementary social studies programs. Suggests good teaching uses analogies and metaphors to facilitate learning. Recommends illustrating key concepts through myths, fables, and parables. Argues that using stories that show how things work allows students to apply the…

This study examined 40 articles published in the "American Journal on Mental Retardation" or the "Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Handicaps" (JASH) from 1976-78 and 1986-88. Both journals published low numbers of articles with ecological validity in the late 1970s, but JASH subsequently increased…

Argues that social studies teachers need to involve their students in building their own pyramids of knowledge from basic facts into broad general principles. Discusses a class at Moorhead State University (Minnesota) that uses the inquiry method to help student teachers learn to construct lessons that follow the…

Six 12-year-old students were followed during an eight-month course using "Energy and Change" curricular materials, which introduce ideas related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics through an abstract picture language. Concludes that students had higher levels of generalization in their explanations of physical, chemical, and biological…