Enhancing instructional efficiency through generalization and instructive feedback: A single-subject study with children with mental retardation

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze (a) the acquisition and maintenance effects of the simultaneous prompting (SP) procedure on teaching to name objects to two participants with mental retardation, (b) the effects of multiple exemplar approach for generalizing the acquired skills over three non-trained examples (sample), and (c) the effects of presenting instructive feedback stimuli on acquiring non-target information. A multiple probe design across behaviors was used and replicated across a subject in the study. The results showed that SP was effective on the acquisition and maintenance of the target behaviors by the participants in the study. The participants generalized the acquired skills to three examples with at least 91% accuracy and were able to gain instructive feedback stimuli to some extent. Future research needs are discussed based on the findings.