Education and training of the mentally retarded 

About: Education and training of the mentally retarded is an academic journal. The journal publishes majorly in the area(s): Special education & Mainstreaming. It has an ISSN identifier of 0013-1237. Over the lifetime, 528 publications have been published receiving 4483 citations.

Acquisition of Manual Sign Use: Collateral Reduction of Maladaptive Behavior, and Factors Limiting Generalization.

Abstract: An 11-year-old, nonverbal boy diagnosed as "autistic" was trained to communicate wants and needs with manual signs The signs were trained first in a corner of the classroom, and when generalization did not occur to other times of day and other areas of the classroom, training was delivered in "natural" classroom situations Training in the natural situations was introduced in a multiple baseline design across signs Both use of manual signs and frequency of maladaptive grabbing and yelling were measured Results indicate that sign training in the corner had no effect on the use of signs in the classroom or on the maladaptive responses Training in the natural setting was functionally related both to use of signs across the school day, and a dramatic reduction in grabbing and yelling Implications for sign language instruction, generalization and reduction of maladaptive behavior are addressed The ability to communicate is fundamental to a broad array of individual behavior pat terns One method of communication that has proven functional for severely handi capped and autistic individuals is the use of manual signs (Cohen, 1981; Stremel-Camp bell, Cantrell & Hall, 1977) It is evident that a large number of individuals who do not have verbal skills can learn to use manual signs (Fristoe & Lloyd, 1979; Hopper & Helmick, 1977; Moores, 1974; Poulton & Alogozzine, 1980; Schepis et al, 1982) If this skill is to be useful, however, signing should extend be yond training situations to those situations experienced in day-to-day living Generaliza tion of this type should not be assumed While examples of sign use in nontrained situations exist (Schaeffer, Musil, Kollinzas & McDowell, 1977), there are equally strong demonstra 1 The activity which is the subject of this report was supported in whole or in part by the US De partment of Education, Contract 300-82-0362 However, the opinions expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the position or policy of the US Department of Education, and no official endorse ment of the Department should be inferred 2 The authors express appreciation to Julie Wil liams, G Thomas Bellamy, Shawn M Boles, and Barbara Wilcox for comments on earlier drafts of this study, and to Marv Wilkerson, Ellen Adler, and Linda Hall for their cooperation in imple menting the intervention tions of poor generalization (Carr, 1982; Ful wiler & Fouts, 1976; Kohl, Wilcox & Karlan, 1978; Konstantareas, Oxman & Webster, 1978) Programs designed to teach manual signs must address procedures for ensuring that signs will be used in situations beyond training In addition to providing students with a functional mode of communication, sign lan guage has been associated with substantial re ductions in inappropriate behaviors (Carr, 1979; Creedon, 1973; Miller & Miller, 1973) For example, Casey (1978) reported the re duction of several different deviant behaviors after autistic children were taught to use manual sign language Similarly, Durand and Carr (1983) have demonstrated that instruc tion in communication skills was functionally rel ted to reduced self-stimulatory behavior This correlation between improved com munication and reduction in maladaptive be haviors raises the issue of using sign language instruction as one method of eliminating in appropriate responses The present study addresses two research questions: (a) What are the comparative effects of training manual signs in a simulated versus natural setting as methods of producing per formance in the natural classroom, and (b) is there a functional relationship between sign language training and the reduction of mal adaptive behaviors? Teaching Manual Sign Language to a Nonverbal Student / 39 This content downloaded from 1575539163 on Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:18:59 UTC All use subject to http://aboutjstororg/terms Method regular public school The classroom included eleven students and five adult staff Instruc Subject and Setting tion was conducted in both small groups and , • one-to-one situations The subject was an 11-year-old male, with a diagnosis of "autism" and an IQ below 40 as measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale Measurement For Children (Revised) (his exact IQ score was withheld as part of school district policy) The primary dependent variables were the The subject demonstrated good receptive "use of appropriate signs" and "grabbing and language skills but extremely limited use of yelling" in the classroom when presented with expressive language Prior to the study he the five stimulus conditions listed in Table 1 had not been exposed to manual sign language A third dependent variable was the percent training, and did not use any conventional of correct responses during sign training ses signs sions The study was initiated in response to Data were collected on the primary de teacher requests to reduce the subject's rate pendent variables during the normal class of grabbing and yelling during the school day room routine by a graduate student in special Systematic observation of antecedent and education Each time the subject was pre consequent events associated with these besented with one of the stimulus conditions in haviors indicated a pattern in which grabbing Table 1, his response during the following and yelling were associated with five specific 15 seconds was recorded as "grabbing and/ stimulus conditions (see Table 1) Teacher or yelling," "appropriate signing," or praise for not grabbing and yelling, and time' 'other'' Grabbing and/or yelling was defined out following grabbing and yelling had been as "physically removing unoffered items from used unsuccessfully prior to the study others" and/or "verbal responses emitted at The study was conducted in an elementary, a volume above normal conservation" Ap special education classroom for students lapropriate signing was defined as "production beled "trainabiy mentally retarded" within a of the American Sign Language (ASL) manual

A Treatment Package for Increasing Sight Word Recognition for Use in Daily Living Skills.

Abstract: Daily living skills are critical to community independence. To maximize effectiveness of instruction in daily living skills, teachers need procedures that are applicable to small group instruction, that promote gen eralization, and that can be replicated across skills. In the present study, moderately mentally retarded adults acquired and generalized daily living skills through a combination of instructions in reading instruction booklets and using the booklets to perform the tasks. The training package included time delay and an application of the Premack Principle for sight word reading and instruction on using the booklet with step-by-step prompting and praise. Procedures were effective for sets of food preparation, laundry, and telephone skills. Daily living skills such as laundry, food prepa ration, and telephone usage are critical to in dependent community living (Crnic & Pym, 1979; Schalock & Harper, 1978). However, these skills may be especially difficult to master due to the generalization required to perform domestic tasks independently. For example, stimulus generalization is necessary because of the numerous variations in household materials (e.g., the variety of clothing appropriate for a "warm" wash cycle or the variety of foods that a cook stirs). Most non-handicapped adults rely on some printed materials, such as telephone books, rec ipes, and product label instructions to aid their own generalization. Although these printed ma terials may be too difficult for a mentally re tarded adult with a limited sight word vocab ulary, teacher-made instructional booklets have been used successfully by mentally retarded adults (Johnson & Cuvo, 1981; Martin, Rusch, James, Decker, & Trytol, 1982; Robinson-Wil son, 1977). Martin et al. (1982) compared cook ing instruction with and without picture recipe cards with severely retarded adults and found that the cards increased the number of steps the clients performed independently. Thus, instruc tion booklets can provide a normalized, effective technique to enhance daily living skills instruc tion. To teach instruction booklet use to perform daily living skills, the teacher needs an effective training package that defines (a) the instructional arrangement, (b) stimulus control procedures, and (c) reinforcement procedures. Effectiveness of the package can be determined through its utility across subjects, with replications across skills and evidence of stimulus generalization. The most practical instructional arrangement for many teachers is group instruction. Group instruction has been effective with mentally re tarded individuals who acquired showering skills (Matson, DiLorenzo, & Esveldt-Dawson, 1981) and telephone skills (Kittelson & Certo, 1975; Smith & Meyers, 1979). To establish stimulus control, the teacher must enable the student to respond to the booklet itself and to the critical stimuli within the task. Johnson and Cuvo (1981) and Martin, et al. (1982) provide examples of prompt fading pro cedures for teaching both the booklet and task. In both studies a picture recipe booklet was in troduced in the context of cooking instruction. The picture provided the discriminative stimulus to make each response in the food preparation chain. If the student did not respond to the pic ture, the trainer prompted the response through use of a prompt hierarchy (e.g., verbal instruc tions, modeling, physical guidance). When sight words are chosen for instruction booklets for instructions that cannot be depicted easily, direct ' Preparation of this manuscript was supported partially by U.S. Department of Education—SEP Grant No. G008101883. The authors wish to express their appreciation to the staff of Lynchburg Training School and Hospital for their cooperation with this research. A Treatment Package / 191 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.40 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:24:56 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Subjects instruction in reading may be necessary to eson daily living skills instruction to provide a gen tablish words as discriminative stimuli. eral instruction booklet procedure. The inde To develop stimulus control when discrimipendent variables or components of the training native stimuli are sight words, a prompt fading package were: (a) a group instructional arrange procedure applicable to oral reading is necessary. ment (Kittelson & Certo, 1975; Smith & Meyers, Time delay is a procedure that has been em1979); (b) stimulus control procedures, including ployed to teach other language skills (Halle, time delay fading of a verbal model for sight Marshall & Spradlin, 1979; Smeets & Striefel, words (Browder, 1981; Snell 8c Gast, 1981) and 1976; Striefel, Wetherby & Karlan, 1976). In a prompt hierarchy plus instruction booklets for time delay, small increments of time are introthe task analyzed steps of the daily living skills duced between the discriminative stimulus and (Johnson & Cuvo, 1981; Risley & Cuvo, 1981); the prompt so that the learner eventually "anand (c) reinforcement of sight word reading with ticipates" the prompt and responds correctly, praise, tokens, and a Premack activity schedule independently (Snell & Gast, 1981). In a group (Snell, 1982) and reinforcement of daily living comparison of moderately and severely retarded skill performance with step-by-step praise (John adults, Browder (1981) demonstrated the effison & Cuvo, 1981; Risley & Cuvo, 1981). The cacy of time delay of a verbal model for sight dependent variables for evaluation of the pack word acquisition. This prompt fading procedure age were: (a) sight word reading (i.e., reading needs to be evaluated for individual subjects' the booklets), (b) daily living skill acquisition, acquisition of sight word instructions for task and (c) stimulus generalization, performance. Reinforcement procedures used in daily living Method skills instruction have included verbal praise for performance of each step in a task analysis (Cuvo, Jacobi, & Sipko, 1981; Risley & Cuvo, 1980; Martin, et al., 1982), self-graphing (Johnson & Subjects for this study were eight moderately Cuvo, 1981), and tokens (Snell, 1982). Snell retarded adults who resided in a community (1982) provided token reinforcement (pennies) preparation center of a large institution for in teaching bedmaking skills to severely retarded mentally retarded people. Table 1 presents sub adolescents. These tokens could be exchanged ject characteristics. As the table denotes, most for recreational activities after instruction. Prosubjects were confined to wheelchairs. Subjects viding a preferred activity contingent on perhad received daily living skills and sight word formance in a less preferred activity is called instruction. However, none knew more than five the Premack Principle (Sulzer-Azaroff & Mayer, sight words, and they did not perform food 1977). Using the sequence of activities to enpreparation, telephone, or laundry skills inde hance motivation may be an especially useful pendently. Due to their lack of skills, these ser technique for the classroom teacher. vices were performed for them on a daily basis In most of the research on daily living skills, by the institution's staff, a training package has been evaluated for one type of skill (e.g., cooking). Extensions of a training package across daily living skills can provide a teacher with a well-developed general Instruction took place in the appropriate facility technique with potential for numerous appli(e.g., kitchen, laundry room) of the center where cations. Assessment of generalization has also the clients resided. Session length was deter been omitted in many daily living skills studies. mined by subject pace on the set number of An exception, Johnson and Cuvo (1981) demtrials and averaged ten minutes for reading and onstrated subjects' generalization across cooking twenty minutes for the subtask instruction. Ses materials (e.g., boil an egg and boil a vegetable). sions were conducted during subjects' leisure An effective training package should replicate hours (e.g., early morning, evening, weekends) this assessment of stimulus generalization. and averaged four times per week. Three teach The current study provides an evaluation of ers (the last three authors) employed by the in a training package that synthesizes the literature stitution implemented the research. Each teacher Setting and Sessions 192 / Education and Training of the Mentally Retarded-October 1984 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.40 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016 07:24:56 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

The Effects of Social and Isolate Toys on the Interactions and Play of Integrated and Nonintegrated Groups of Preschoolers.

Abstract: The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of social and isolate toys on the interactions and play of integrated and nonintegrated groups ofpreschoolers. Sixteen preschoolers (12 handicapped) partidpated. Observations were made using a time-sampling technique obtaining information on the frequency of interactions, amount of time preschoolers engaged in toy play, and toy preferences. Results revealed that under conditions in which only social toys were available, children generally engaged in more interactions and less toy play as compared to the other conditions. These results were consistent across groups. Most research related to the integration of handicapped and nonhandicapped preschoolers has focused on social interactions. A consistent finding of these investigations is that without specific attempts to facilitate interactions, hand icapped and nonhandicapped children do not interact spontaneously (Devoney, Guralnick, & Rubin, 1974; McHale & Olley, 1982; Porter, Ramsey, Tremblay, Iaceobo, & Crawley, 1978). As a result, much effort has gone into the de velopment of strategies such as peer modeling and reinforcement (Guralnick, 1976a; 1976b), teacher reinforcement (Apolloni & Cooke, 1978; Berry & Marshall, 1978; Strain, Cooke, & Apol loni, 1976) and sociodramatic play (Devoney, Guralnick, & Rubin, 1974; Strain & Wiegerink, 1976) to facilitate interaction. Another strategy which may have an impact on the frequency of interactions between hand icapped and nonhandicapped preschoolers is the type of toys available during free play situations (Peterson & Haralick, 1977). There have only been a few investigations which have addressed this topic (Quilitch & Risley, 1973; Quilitch, Christopherson, & Risley, 1977). Recently, Hendrickson, Tremblay, Strain, and Shores (1981) reported on the relationship between toy and material use and the occurrence of social interactive behaviors of normally developing preschool children. The types of social play (i.e., isolate play, parallel play, sharing/cooperation, physical assistance) preschoolers engaged in while using 38 toys and materials were recorded. Approximately 66% of the toys and materials were used in more than one type of social play and 10 toys were distributed with relative equiv alance across all types of play. The purpose of the present study was to de termine the effects of social and isolate toys on the interactions and play of integrated and non integrated groups of preschoolers. Five specific questions were addressed: (a) is there a difference in the frequency of interactions among pre schoolers as a function of the type of toy avail able; (b) is there a difference in the frequency of interaction as a function of whether the group was integrated or nonintegrated; (c) is there a difference in the amount of time preschoolers engage in toy play as a function of the type of toy available; (d) is there a difference in the amount of time preschoolers engage in toy play as a function of whether the group was inte grated or nonintegrated; and (e) were any toys associated with more play than other toys?