Speaker immersion is a tactic that uses multiple establishing operations to increase speaker behavior for individuals with limited mand and tact repertoires. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the effects of speaker immersion on the number of independent mands, tacts, and autoclitics emitted by young children with verbal delays. In the…

In a permanently changing environment, it is by no means an easy task to distinguish potentially important events from negligible ones. Yet, to survive, every animal has to continuously face that challenge. How does the brain accomplish this feat? Building on previous work in "Drosophila melanogaster" visual learning, we have developed an…

The advantages and disadvantages of wider or narrower definitions of "pidginization" and "pidgin" are reviewed to determine the differences between pidgins and naturalistically learned second languages (L2s). It is argued that a wider definition is preferred because it avoids problematic counterexamples and captures…

The purpose of this study was to examine effectiveness of simultaneous prompting in teaching pointing to numerals to individuals with autism. Three individuals with autism were taught pointing to numerals, which were orally named by the teacher using simultaneous prompting. A multiple probe design was used across three behaviors and replicated…

The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (BIDR) is one of the most widely used social desirability scales. The authors conducted a reliability generalization study to examine the typical reliability coefficients of BIDR scores and explored factors that explained the variability of reliability estimates across studies. The results indicated…

Functional analyses of problem behavior for 4 young boys with developmental delays showed that problem behaviors were maintained by both negative and positive reinforcement. Functional communication training was conducted with one set of training stimuli in which the child's mother presented a work task in the family living room. Pretreatment…

This guest editorial describes ways teachers can use guessing games about an unknown item in a "mystery box" to help children improve their abilities to listen to others, recall information, ask purposeful questions, classify items by class, make inferences, synthesize information, and draw conclusions. The author presents information…

This study was designed to identify the types of understandings, skills, and beliefs that affect pre-service teachers' evaluations of students' mathematical arguments in classroom contexts. Thirty-four pre-service teachers read a transcript of a third grade lesson in which the students were expected to prove a generalization. To investigate…

This practicum determined that students with language learning disabilities were not experiencing success in the regular classroom, and skills acquired in a pull-out program were not generalizing to the regular classroom. The practicum piloted a first-grade inclusion program which called for the resource room teacher and speech language…

The use of the Work Keys Listening and Writing Assessment, part of an assessment system of the generic employability skills of individuals, needs to be accompanied by systematic evaluation of its technical qualities. This study examined sampling variability and generalizability of Listening and Writing scores when multiple forms, raters, and…

This review evaluates research on the Strategies Intervention Model (SIM) developed at the Institute for Research in Learning Disabilities, University of Kansas. The model is designed to teach learning-disabled and low-achieving adolescents strategies which will enable them to learn and perform independently, show appropriate social and personal…

This paper examines the use of simplification in second language instruction. It argues that although simplification is a necessary process in coping with the conceptual and experiential chaos of the classroom, it is a potentially dangerous process that risks creating categories that become too insensitive to cope with changing audiences and…

Contextualized instruction (also referenced as anchor instruction) is teaching a skill within a specific or functional context known as a target setting. The purpose of this approach is to teach transfer or generalization of a skill in order to increase the likelihood that what is taught in the training or classroom setting will be used in future…

Reproduction training improved performance only on the reproduction test; discrimination training improved performance only on the discrimination test. The effects of discrimination were seen both on forms used in training and on other similar forms, while the effects of reproduction training were seen only on trained forms. (Author/BJG)

Reports of the use of behavior modification in the classroom are reviewed, with special attention given to whether or not generalization of the effects of the behavior modification programs was obtained. The authors develop a set of 15 proposed "rules" for obtaining generalization of the effects of behavior modification procedures. (Author)