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INSTRUCTION‐FOLLOWING BEHAVIOR OF A RETARDED CHILD AND ITS CONTROLLING STIMULI 1
Author(s) -
Striefel Sebastian,
Wetherby Bruce
Publication year - 1973
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1901/jaba.1973.6-663
Subject(s) - generalization , psychology , multiple baseline design , verb , noun , reinforcement , developmental psychology , verbal learning , control (management) , cognitive psychology , cognition , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , computer science , social psychology , intervention (counseling) , mathematics , mathematical analysis , psychiatry , neuroscience
A combination of positive reinforcement and fading of physical guidance was used to teach a profoundly retarded boy specific responses to specific verbal instructions. The design consisted of a multiple baseline of probe data across different verbal instructions. The subject started responding correctly to each verbal instruction as that item was trained in a multiple‐baseline order. Generalization did not occur to items that had not yet been trained, nor did it occur to items included to assess generalization. Probes of variations in the verbal instructions, conducted after training was completed, revealed that generalization was minimal except in those cases where the variation consisted of the verb only, the noun only, the noun plus preposition, or where the verb of the instruction was presented last. Training a profoundly retarded 11‐yr‐old subject to respond to specific verbal instructions did not adequately facilitate the development of a generative instruction‐following capability, nor did all verbal elements of the instruction control a specific response.