The Acquisition, Transfer, and Generalization of Requests by Young Children with Severe Disabilities.
1996; Volume: 31; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1079-3917
Autores Tópico(s)Autism Spectrum Disorder Research
ResumoThis study compared the effects of two instructional trial scheduling formats (massed practice only vs. combined massed practice and distributed practice) on the acquisition, transfer, and generalization of explicitly prompted requests. A general case instructional analysis and naturalistic teaching strategies were used by classroom staff to teach 2 sets of single word requests to 5 children with severe disabilities (CA = 4 — 8). A within subjects adapted alternated treatments design (AADT) (Holcombe, Wolery, cf Gast, 1994) u'ith interspersed transfer and stimulus generalization probes was employed to collect and analyze child performance data. Results indicated that (a) the general case/ naturalistic teaching approach was effective for all children, and (b) there were only minimal and/or child-specific differences in the relative effectiveness of the two trial scheduling formats. During the last decade there have been a creased complexity and opportunity for these number of changes in the types of educational efforts (Atwater, Carta, Schwartz, & McCon opportunities available to young children nell, 1994; Sailor, Gee, & Karasoff, 1993). with severe disabilities. Changes in federal As a direct result of the evolving educa Iegislation and regulations and position statetional contexts for young children with se ments favoring inclusion by influential naVere disabilities, the roles of teachers who tional organizations make it increasingly work with these children are also changing likely that in the future young children with (Baumgart & Ferguson, 1991). General edu disabilities will be enrolled in inclusive classcation teachers, teachers primarily trained to room programs with typically developing work with children with mild/moderate dis peers (e.g. McDonnell, 1995; Noonan & abilities, paraprofessional staff, and other stu McCormick, 1993; Wolery & Wilbers, 1994). dents may have a primary role in the imple A number of approaches for adapting the mentation of individualized instruction for a curriculum in early childhood and elemenchild with severe disabilities, even though tary classrooms and for incorporating indithey may have very limited training or expe vidualized and effective instruction within rience in this area Many teachers who were these settings have been developed (e.g. trained to work with children with severe dis Giangreco, Clomnger, & Iverson, 1993; abilities have expertise in functional curricu Thompson et al„ 1993). Educat.onal reform ,um ( Sne„; 1993)> behaviora, instruc. and restructuring and a reexamination of dedona| mode]s ( Wq, Baj, & Su . velopmentally and individually moo j .u . c . • i . r . 7 . _ ,-i i / 1988), and the management or instructional educational practices for young children (e.g. , , , , , . , , _ . 7 , 0 and behavioral needs in special education Bredekamp & Rosegrant, 1992; Wolery, , . , 0 . r, „ ^ . ^ o 1 1 , • classroom settings (e.g. Stnefel 8c Cadez, Strain, & Bailey, 1992) have created in, ° . ,. . 7 1983). However, they may have very little training or experience in the implementation This article is based on a study conducted in parof individualized curriculum within the orga tial fulfillment of the requirements for a Ph. D. Denizational, social, and curricular environ gree in Special Education at the University of Utah. ments found in general early childhood and The author wishes to thank the participating chilelementary educational programs. dren, teachers, and teaching assistants in Davis i j • i i i ^ OI , T_. . r , . ^ While the educational contexts and teacher County School District for their assistance. Corre. . spondence concerning this article should be adroles are changlng rapidfy, there remain sev dressed to Andrea P. McDonnell, Department of era' persistent problems in most effectively Special Education, MBH 221, University of Utah, educating young children with severe disabil Salt Lake City, Utah 84112. ities. These problems include selecting the Acquisition, Transfer, and Generalization / 213 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.157 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 05:54:13 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms most critical intervention targets for an indiyoung children with severe disabilities to use vidual child, using the most effective and explicitly prompted (Koegel & Koegel, 1995) efficient strategies for instruction, and assurrequests through the implementation of an ing that these strategies will also support the intervention package which included natural generalization and maintenance of learned istic language teaching strategies and a gen skills in a variety of meaningful contexts at eral case analysis of antecedent stimuli. For home, at friends houses, in child care and half of the study participants all training trials school, and in the community. While many occurred within a massed practice instruc advances in intervention practice and retional format. For the other half of the partic search have been made, there are still a numipants half of the instructional trials were in a ber of questions to be answered concerning massed practice format, and the other half of the most effective way to educate learners the trials were distributed within other class with severe disabilities in inclusive settings. room or school activities. Naturalistic train Many of the answers may come from new ining, general case programming, and massed structional strategies, others from adaptaand distributed trial instruction are briefly tions or advances in the use of established described below, strategies. A reexamination of strategies that have previously been used in less inclusive or natural settings but may have application in Naturalistic Language Teaching Strategies integrated or inclusive settings may be valu able. A variety of strategies have been used to en A recent survey of project directors, prohance the efficacy of natural environmental fessors, administrators, and researchers who stimuli and consequences in teaching commu provide direct and/or indirect services to innicative competence to individuals with cog dividuals with severe disabilities found that nitive and/or language impairments or de many instructional methods, which are prilays. These milieu teaching strategies include marily behavioral, were judged by the major(a) incidental teaching (e.g. Hart & Risley, ity of survey respondents to be 1975, 1980), (b) mand-model (e.g. Warren, for use in general education settings (BillMcQuarter, & Rogers-Warren, 1984), (c) ingsley & Kelley, 1994). Even the least accepttime delay (e.g. Halle, Marshall, & Spradlin, able instructional methods were deemed ac1979; Venn et al., 1993), and (d) the natural ceptable or by the majority of relanguage paradigm (NLP) (Koegel, O'Dell, & spondents. Massed trials was one of thirteen, Koegel, 1987; Koegel & Koegel, 1995). De out of fifty-one instructional practices, contailed reviews and descriptions of naturalistic sidered appropriate in academic setstrategies can be found in a number of tings by 20 % or more of the respondents. sources, including Halle, Alpert, & Anderson However, more than 75 % of the respondents (1984), Hart (1985), Kaiser, Alpert, & War did not give massed practice a appropriren (1987), Kaiser, Ostrosky, & Alpert ate rating. The most common concerns for (1993), Warren & Gadzag (1990), and most of the strategies that were judged Wolery et al., 1988). Naturalistic teaching appropriate were logistical in nature, with strategies often involve simultaneous changes potential stigmatizing effects of use of the in a variety of intervention-related compo practice a less frequent concern (Billingsley & nents, including selection of stimulus items, Kelley, 1994). While raising many interesting prompts, interaction with stimulus items, issues, as the authors of this survey pointed type of responses targeted, and type of conse out, the reactions of general educators to the quences (Koegel et al., 1987). The desirabil methods were not included in this survey, and ity of some use of naturalistic techniques as are certainly a critical component of deterpart of the overall plan for intervention for mining the appropriateness or acceptability communication goals is generally acknowl of the methods within general education setedged (Prizant & Bailey, 1992). The specific tings. combination of naturalistic language training This article will describe the implementastrategies used within this study are described tion of an exploratory study on teaching in the methods section. 214 / Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities-September 1996 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.157 on Fri, 08 Jul 2016 05:54:13 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms General Case Instruction Massed Practice and Distributed Trial
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