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)

Study explored how analog type and format and learner's prior knowledge would affect transfer outside of an experimental setting, examining the relationship between the analog's contextual elements and high school freshmen's performance on a science problem. Some students spontaneously applied structural elements on the analog to the solution. (SM)

Two experiments with 89 fifth-grade and 166 intermediate-grade students with learning problems found that specific strategy training improved fifth graders' level of knowledge and performance on a categorical memory test, and metamemory and metacognitive reading training improved metacognitive knowledge and academic achievement of the learning…

Stimulus control technology was used to instruct seven students in grades five and six who demonstrated difficulty with fraction ratio and decimal relations. Students were trained to match pictorial representations of fractions to printed counterpart fraction ratios and to match printed decimals to pictorial representations of counterpart…

This article presents a rationale and recommendations for developing generalized outcomes in instructional objectives for learners with mental retardation. Examples of objectives that include generalized performance are presented, and a checklist is provided to facilitate the preparation of objectives that target the use of functional skills in…

This review focuses on correspondence training procedures, in which a subject makes statements about intended positive behavior and the statements are reinforced. The paper examines early research, generalization, maintenance, application to mentally retarded individuals, and the concept of self-control. (Author/JDD)

A study involving four male beginning readers with learning disabilities compared the effects on gains in fluency of two types of mastery criteria. One required students to reread a passage until they demonstrated 3 successive improvements; the other required rereading until 90 correct words per minute were reached. Both were successful;…

This paper presents a conceptual framework, based on training in self-regulation, for the normalization of sexual behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities. Four features of such an approach include acquiring appropriate sexual behaviors, generalizing skills, discriminating appropriate contexts, and evaluating one's actions. (DB)

This paper proposes for consideration by intervention researchers two instructional parameters that potentially can promote transfer of learned strategies in students with learning disabilities. The two parameters are mediating student mindfulness during strategy learning and at transfer and engaging in transfer-promoting instruction. (JDD)

Sixteen individuals (ages 7-18) with moderate or severe mental retardation were taught to identify 2 comparative discriminations by a static or dynamic presentation procedure. No differences in percentage of unprompted correct responses were found between the two procedures in training, generalization, or maintenance. (Author/JDD)

Forty-seven young children, 15 with disabilities, were observed 4 times for types and levels of engagement. Results indicated that engagement is difficult to measure through molecular data collection techniques because of error in dependability measures. The number of observed sessions could be increased to achieve generalizability, but increases…

Twenty-five children with specific language impairment (SLI) and 25 children with normal language (NL) were presented with novel vocabulary and bound-morpheme learning tasks. SLI children had significantly lower vocabulary learning levels and less ability to generalize bound morphemes than NL children. Results support the storage/access but not…

This book reports results of a National Research Council study and the validity of generalizing from its studies of about 500 occupations to over 12,000 jobs. The use of the General Aptitude Test Battery for prediction is discussed, and its impact and recommendations for future use are considered. (SLD)