Elementary school students whose class behavior was identified as inconsistent were assigned to a home-note, family problem-solving, or control condition. Compared to no treatment, both forms of intervention significantly reduced class work scatter. Only the children in family problem-solving condition demonstrated generalization to nonreinforced…

A severely disabled and retarded 15-year-old girl was examined for: effect of music and approval as reinforcers for following a command; effect of a food-pairing procedure on an approval alone condition, an approval plus music condition, and an ignore condition; durability of newly conditioned reinforcers; and strength of the new reinforcers as…

Research evidence relative to three intervention strategies (medication, behavior modification, and cognitive training) was examined to determine the intervention effects on handicapped students' performance in personal/social, psychological processing, and educational skills domains. (PHR)

In a single-subject design with replication across Ss, teacher prompts were used in an attempt to increase the rate of social behavior of three severely and profoundly retarded adolescents who were legally blind. Training took place in the classroom on successive school days with the teacher prompting each S to engage in positive social…

Traces the evolution of the social competence concept from the 1970s to the present, and addresses matching social skills training to social skills deficits, understanding contextual issues in social skills training, generalization of social skills training, and developing and using meaningful outcome measures in social skills training. (Author/CR)

This study analyzes how educational psychology texts use case materials to enhance transfer to application, describing four methods for using cases within instruction. The texts use very different case-based activities, each with strengths and weaknesses relative to placement in the text, instructional strategy, case content/structure, and…

Two special educators comment on an article in the same issue by Joe Reichle entitled "Communication Intervention with Persons Who Have Several Disabilities." Siegel-Causey stresses the implications of advances in augmentative and alternative communication and training for broader use of existing communication skills. Mirenda supports combining…

Discusses the strategies and structures necessary for fostering social competence in all children, especially those at risk of academic or social failure. Discusses strategies for assessing and understanding social skills problems, teaching social skills, and preferred practices for achieving generalized responding. Also provides guidelines for…

A woman with Down syndrome, who had shown selective mutism for more than 14 years, successfully participated in a program designed to reinforce communication and gradually increase the number of words spoken to one person and then to others. Nonaversive behavior methods were used and response initiative procedures were developed. (Contains…

The effects of social skill training on social behavior was assessed, using a structured learning model with 3 children with behavioral disorders, ages 7-14. Results showed an increase in frequency for most skill areas, an inverse relationship across negative behaviors, maintenance over time, and moderate levels of generalization to nontreatment…

Demonstrates how the art education curriculum is linked to general education. Provides a conceptual approach to an environmental design study curriculum that incorporates the Wisconsin state art curriculum guide's five generalizations with appropriate conceptual statements for primary, intermediate, middle, and high school grades, and the four…

This discussion of fostering recall and developing reasoning processes in students with mild disabilities considers the role of mnemonic strategies, similarities between mnemonic strategies and elaborative interrogation to facilitate information retrieval, constructivism and elaborative interrogation, and such problems as generalization and…

Five teachers serving 26 children (ages 3-15) with developmental disabilities received training on creating opportunities for requesting (missing item, interrupted chain, delayed assistance). The strategy was effective in helping teachers increase the number of functional communication requesting opportunities and the number of correct student…

This study investigated "redirects," a procedure in which a teacher redirects a child's communication from the teacher to a peer, as a means to facilitate initiations to peers. Use with four preschool boys with specific language impairment found that most of the redirected initiations received conversational responses from peers. Generalization to…

This single-subject study compared the effectiveness of two intervention approaches, direct instruction and activity-based intervention, on acquisition and generalization of object names by six young children who were at risk or had developmental delays. Acquisition of object names was enhanced by use of highly structured didactic approaches to…