An Analysis of the Relevance of Topographical Similarity on Positive Practice of Spelling Errors

Effect of Response Practice Variables on Learning Spelling and Sight Vocabulary

“…Interestingly, participants learned just as well when the experimenter corrected the error and participants engaged in five irrelevant practices. The lack of difference between relevant and irrelevant practice confirms the results of Axelrod et al (1984) and, substantially, Rodgers and Iwata (1991). The lack of difference between irrelevant and relevant practice is a counterintuitive finding because irrelevant practice per se could not have served a direct educative function.…”

“…Perhaps, the target behavior is strengthened by negative reinforcement in the context of avoidance learning. Two studies (Axelrod et al, 1984;Rodgers & Iwata, 1991) have investigated the comparative effects of task-relevant and irrelevant practice. Axelrod et al examined whether it was necessary to use topographically similar overcorrection (i.e., write the correct spelling of each erroneous response on the pretest, identify the phonetic spelling and part of speech, locate the dictionary definition, and use the word correctly five times) or whether topographically dissimilar overcorrection (i.e., practice as described above for words not on the pretest) would produce improvement in spelling performance of 1 mentally retarded and 1 emotionally disturbed student.…”

“…Requests for reprints should be sent to Anthony J. Cuvo, Rehabilitation Institute, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901. context of discrete-trial academic instruction of students with disabilities. Research has shown the efficacy of repeated practice in various forms on the acquisition of academic tasks, including spelling (Axelrod, Kramer, Appleton, Rockett, & Hamlet, 1984;Baker, 1992; Dalrymple & Feldman, 1992;Foxx & Jones, 1978; Mabee, 1988;Matson, Esveldt-Dawson, & Kazdin, 1982;Ollendick, Matson, Esveldt-Dawson, & Shapiro, 1980;Singh, Farquhar, & Hewett, 1991;Stewart & Singh, 1986) and sight vocabulary (Baker, 1992;Singh, 1987;, 1988Singh, Singh, & Winton, 1984) by students with disabilities. The purpose of the present series of experiments was to examine several variables that may affect practice as an instructional procedure in the discrete-trial instruction of children and adults with disabilities.…”

Error correction in discrimination training for children with autism

“…Withholding prompts and reinforcement probably would have increased the number of times that error correction was applied, though at the expense of generalizability to standard instructional practices. Even with prompting and reinforcement procedures, however, four participants did require numerous error corrections, and three of the four showed larger differential effects than any participants in previously reported studies on this topic (Altman et al, 1980;Axelrod et al, 1984;Barbetta et al, 1993Barbetta et al, , 1994Bennett & Cavanaugh, 1998;Drevno et al, 1994;Rodgers & Iwata, 1991). Indeed, the present study appears to be the first to show that the choice of error correction procedure has a large impact on skill acquisition for some individuals with developmental disabilities.…”

“…Rodgers & Iwata, 1991, Figure 2). Axelrod, Kramer, Appleton, Rockett, and Hamlet (1984) also compared task relevant and task irrelevant remedial trials and reported that both improved spelling performance, with the task irrelevant procedure producing slightly more improvement. Rodgers and Iwata's results suggest that the most efficient procedure for conducting remedial trials may vary from individual to individual, but all three studies indicate that differential effects across procedures may be minor.…”