Acquisition, Maintenance, and Generalization of Parent-Taught Skills with Two Severely Handicapped Infants

Abstract

Article Descriptorsinfants; severely handicapped; parent training; skill generalization; motor skills, cognitive/prespeech skills; direct instruction of parents; multiple baseline. Mothers of two severely handicappedinfants (CA 4 and 14 months, respectively) were in structed how to teach their children three tasks. A 60-year-old foster mother of a 4-month-old infant taught her child to track visually, auditorially localize a sound, and roll from prone to supine. A 29-year-old mother of a 14-month-old infant taught her child to reach for an object, bear weight in a puppy-prone position, and bear weight in a sitting position. The procedure used to teach each mother to train these skills, termed the direct instruction model, relied heavily upon task analysis. The results obtained suggest that the mothers did learn to teach quickly and that once they implemented what they had learned, each of their children acquired the desired responses and maintained them over time. Pre training and posttraining probes conducted in a different setting suggest that each child had generalized the ac quired responses from home to school. These results are discussed both in terms of their im plications for the structure of future parent train ing efforts as well as for additional research.

Training and Generalization of Reach‐grasp Behavior in Blind, Retarded Young Children

“…(Filler & Kasari, 1981;Gold, 1972;Lent & McLean, 1976), by extending the procedures to children who are also blind. Such children are frequently inactive and unresponsive to external stimulation, and they often engage in stereotypic behavior.…”

“…That literature has emphasized the use of behavioral intervention strategies and documentation of child behavior change. Filler and Kasari (1981) demonstrated the effectiveness of parent intervention on the acquisition by severely retarded infants of six developmental tasks: visual tracking, auditory localization, rolling, reaching, weight-bearing puppy prone, and weight-bearing sitting. In their study, two parents were instructed to use a prompting and social praise procedure to increase three motor skills in each infant.…”

Achieving meaningful motor skills: Conceptual and empirical bases of a neurobehavioral intervention approach

“…Consequently, the trainer, therapist, or teacher addresses other aspects of the environment (e.g., motivating the child to perform new behaviors, manipulating antecedent factors) that facilitate acquisition, fluency building, and generalization of skills [Alberto and Troutman, 1986]. Four studies [Filler and Kasari, 1981;Lee et al, 1985;Horn and Warren, 1987;Horn et al, 1992] have investigated the effects of this broader behavioral approach. Filler and Kasari [1981], Horn and Warren [1987], and Horn et al [1992] targeted the acquisition of specific fine or gross motor skills not previously exhibited by the subjects rather than simply increasing the frequency or duration of skills already in the child's repertoire, as earlier studies had done.…”

“…Four studies [Filler and Kasari, 1981;Lee et al, 1985;Horn and Warren, 1987;Horn et al, 1992] have investigated the effects of this broader behavioral approach. Filler and Kasari [1981], Horn and Warren [1987], and Horn et al [1992] targeted the acquisition of specific fine or gross motor skills not previously exhibited by the subjects rather than simply increasing the frequency or duration of skills already in the child's repertoire, as earlier studies had done. Skills were trained using a combination of positioning, verbal prompting, physical prompting, contingent social praise, and toy manipulation.…”

“…Using a changing criterion design, Lee et al [1985] demonstrated short-term maintenance of the skill (i.e., accurate and proficient performance of the new skill in the absence of instructional prompts and reinforcement). Filler and Kasari [1981], Horn and Warren [1987] and Horn et al [1992] conducted maintenance probes between 2 and 5 weeks after training was terminated. The probes indicated performance near or slightly below training levels for all children across skills trained.…”