THE ACQUISITION, TRANSFER, AND GENERALIZATION OF REQUESTS BY YOUNG-CHILDREN WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

This study compared the effects of two instructional trial scheduling formats (massed practice only us. combined massed practice and distrib uted practice) on the acquisition, transfer, and generalization of exp licitly prompted requests. A general case instructional analysis and n aturalistic 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, & Gast, 1994) with interspersed transfer and stimulus generalization probes was employed to collect and analyze chi ld performance data. Results indicated that (a) the general case/natur alistic teaching approach was effective for all children, and (b) ther e were only minimal and/or child-specific differences in the relative effectiveness of the two trial scheduling formats.