USING A TABLE GAME TO TEACH SOCIAL SKILLS TO ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIC-INPATIENTS - DO THE SKILLS GENERALIZE

Foxx and McMorrow's ''Stacking the Deck'' game was used to teach verba l interactive skills to three adolescent psychiatric inpatients. Subje cts were trained on three targeted skills using the game in a unit act ivity room and those same skills were unobtrusively assessed at other times and places on the unit by various hospital staff. Game training produced large and consistent gains in all target responses in the act ivity room; however, no generalization was recorded in covert assessme nts taken by staff members at other times of the day and in other livi ng areas of the unit. To improve performance in daily interactions, an in-situ training procedure consisting of intermittent verbal prompts and reinforcement was programmed into the subjects' daily encounters w ith the staff. This procedure significantly increased use of skills in all three subjects, with most of these gains maintaining in the two s ubjects who were available for the 3-month follow-up.