The paper examines the effect of two types of prompts in eliciting a zero- or low-probability behavior in three Chicano gang members. A general prompt was ineffective, but subject-specific prompts elicited the target behavior (chain of responses terminating in the publication of writing and art work in a community newsletter). (NQA)

A study examined the effectiveness of a training procedure in teaching a special educator the constant time delay procedure and the effectiveness of the procedure in teaching spelling to a 12-year-old with learning disabilities. The teacher successfully implemented the procedure and the student learned to spell all 15 words. (Contains references.)…

Two time-delay conditions for teaching complex visual discriminations to 14 normal preschoolers, 12 with mild mental retardation, and 11 with moderate mental retardation were compared. Results indicated that for all populations and stimuli, time delay of multiple dynamic distinctive-feature prompts produced learning, while time delay of the single…

The study with eight learning-disabled elementary grade students found modeling a more effective feedback strategy than prompting on subjects' sight word reading performance. Differences were generally maintained at one-month and three-month follow-up. (Author/DB)

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)

The relative effectiveness of three procedures for increasing vocal response to prompt in 15 preschool children with Down Syndrome was compared. Light-dimming and visual screening, when combined with positive reinforcement, were both found to be significantly more effective than positive reinforcement alone. (Author/JDD)

This study of visual discrimination training with 22 adults with mental retardation involved either computer-delivered instruction with a stimulus-fading procedure or teacher-delivered verbal and nonverbal prompts. While the teacher prompts were effective with more subjects, participants learned more discrimination problems with the computer…

This study, involving four primary-aged students with moderate handicaps, found that the system of least prompts procedure was effective in teaching food words on a menu to students in a small-group instructional arrangement and that each student also acquired some secondary nontarget stimuli (such as food's approximate cost). (Author/JDD)

Six male elementary school students with learning disabilities were taught multiplication facts using a computer software program with a five-second constant time delay procedure. Results indicated that the computer-assisted instructional program was effective. Learning generalized with varying degrees of success. (Author/JDD)

This study of four preschool children (two typically developing, one physically disabled, one mildly developmentally delayed) found that use of a simultaneous prompting procedure was effective in teaching expressive word recognition to three of the students. Maintenance and generalization were also successful. (Author/JDD)

The effectiveness of simultaneous prompting, an instructional procedure which involves presenting the task direction and immediately providing the controlling prompt, was evaluated with four young adults with severe intellectual disabilities. Daily probe sessions assessed acquisition of the target behavior. Results indicated the procedure was…

A study involving six children (ages 5-13) with mental retardation found that overall passive modeling was significantly more effective than hand-over-hand modeling in teaching skills, and that passive modeling was significantly more effective than hand-over-hand modeling with response-contingent verbal prompting. (Author/CR)

This study found that delivering data cards to three special education teacher aides prompting them to conduct daily social-greeting probes of students with severe disabilities was effective in increasing the level of probing and was accompanied by less variability, higher sustained probing rates, and more equitable probing compared to not using…

Middle school teacher describes a framework that gives inexperienced, anxious writers the confidence to write. The process, called doing prompts, stems from analyzing prompts or writing assignments that outline the topic for a piece of writing. The process involves analyzing the prompt being called for, completing a graphic organizer, composing…

Four children (ages 4-6) with autism were taught to use gestures in combination with oral communication. Intervention was introduced successively across three response categories that contained gestures representative of attention-directing/getting, affective, and descriptive behavior. Results indicated that all participants acquired this skill…