A study found that 4 boys (age 11) with mild disabilities were able to acquire the behaviors for instructive feedback stimuli when the stimuli were presented after trials on any of a set of target behaviors and could acquire instructive feedback behaviors during acquisition of or mastery of target behaviors. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

A study of 13 individuals (ages 15-37) with mental retardation evaluated the effectiveness of an education and skills training program to reduce risk of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection in people with mental retardation. Results indicated an increase in HIV/AIDS knowledge and risk-reduction skills. Recommendations for skill maintenance…

A procedure involving prompting, repetition of the correct response, and reinforcement was effectively used to teach three adults with profound mental retardation gestural yes-no responding. However, reliable generalization of the individuals' responses across settings or persons did not occur even after generality training. (Author/DB)

Conducted a three-year longitudinal analysis of morphological spelling strategies in second through fourth graders. Found that, when children first adopt morphologically determined spelling patterns, they disregard the morphological basis. Generalization progresses from grammatically inappropriate words to the right grammatical category to the…

A multiple probe design across activities was implemented with a 32-year-old with severe developmental disabilities to teach him to request assistance to gain release from nonpreferred difficult activities. Generalization occurred to other tasks associated with escape. No generalization occurred in tasks that the learner engaged in challenging…

This study assessed a microswitch-based program in which three request and one choice microswitches were used for two participants with multiple disabilities. Each request switch was linked to different stimulation opportunities. Both participants learned to use the microswitches very rapidly. Responding levels were high during intervention and…

Investigates a way of connecting the classroom instructional environment with individual students' generalization. Advances focusing phenomena, regularities in the ways in which teachers, students, artifacts, and curricular materials act to direct attention toward certain mathematical properties over others. Conducts an empirical study on slope…

The role of subject verbalization in the generalization of verbal-nonverbal correspondence was investigated in 12 kindergarten children who underwent either correspondence training (subject verbalization) or performing a behavior verbalized by the experimenter. Pupils who received correspondence training demonstrated greater generalization.…

A functional program including planning, shopping, purchasing, and meal preparation was developed which used a photographic format (to minimize reading) and budget guide. Trial with eight young adults whose disabilities ranged from mild to severe indicated that nonreading individuals could learn all aspects of meal preparation. Skills also…

Fifteen students, age 13-21, with moderate to profound mental retardation received shopping skills training in either 1 or 3 department stores. A study of operational behaviors, social behaviors, number of settings in which criterion performance was achieved, and number of sessions required to achieve criterion found no significant differences…

The study found that a pragmatic teaching strategy based on milieu teaching and time-delay procedures was effective in teaching four nonspeaking, developmentally delayed children (ages five and six) using manual communication boards to initiate requests for information (i.e., who, what, and where) (DB)

The study evaluated effects of a data collection inservice package on the frequency of collecting student progress data by four staff members in an integrated preschool program. Individualized instruction and feedback produced consistent increases in the amount of data collection, but minimal generalization to non-targeted children and maintenance…

This study, involving two three-year-olds with mild mental retardation, found that milieu language intervention can directly enhance the acquisition and generative use of lexical and semantic forms used for varied pragmatic functions and that adult systematic commenting and child spontaneous imitation may interact to facilitate the teaching…

Eighty-nine children, aged 4-8, generalized a problem-solving strategy learned on one task to a different version of the task. Compared to average-Intelligence Quotient children, the high-Intelligence Quotient children learned more from their illegal moves and more frequently recognized similarities in the tasks' features. (Author/JDD)

This study of 75 gifted students in grades 6-8 found that the group receiving Creative Problem Solving training with transfer strategies infused had a higher percentage of students applying the strategies to problems out of the context of the training sessions, compared to control group students and students receiving traditional training.…