Teaching Elementary Students With Developmental Disabilities to Recruit Teacher Attention in a General Education Classroom: Effects on Teacher Praise and Academic Productivity

Abstract

Four fourth graders with developmental disabilities were trained to recruit teacher attention while they worked on spelling assignments in a general education classroom. The students were taught to show their work to the teacher two to three times per session and to make statements such as, ''How am I doing?'' or ''Look, I'm all finished!'' Training was conducted in the special education classroom and consisted of modeling, role playing, error correction, and praise. A multiple baseline across students design showed that recruitment training increased (a) the frequency of students' recruiting, (b) the frequency of teacher praise received by the students, (c) the percentage of worksheet items completed, and (d) the accuracy with which the students completed the spelling assignments.

Effect of Varying Rates of Behavior-Specific Praise on the On-Task Behavior of Students with EBD

“…Recent research has shown that students with developmental disabilities (Craft, Alber, & Heward, 1998) and students with learning disabilities (Alber, Heward, & Hippler, 1999) in general education classrooms can be taught to recruit teacher praise. Craft et al found not only increased rates of teacher praise for the four students in their study, but also increased academic productivity and accuracy.…”

“…We are currently designing future studies to examine these interventions. Finally, the promising work of Alber et al (1999) and Craft et al (1998), which taught students to recruit teacher praise, needs to be replicated, both in self-contained classrooms for students with EBD and general education classrooms where students with EBD are mainstreamed.…”

Functional Communication Training Using Assistive Devices: Recruiting Natural Communities of Reinforcement

“…Toward this end, one of the factors necessary for the success of FCT as an intervention lies in the person's ability to request and obtain the stimuli that maintain challenging behavior (Durand, Berotti, & Weiner, 1993). Recruiting natural communities of reinforcement (Craft, Alber, & Heward, 1998;Stokes, Fowler, & Baer, 1978), particularly reinforcement previously obtained through problem behavior, may be a key factor in promoting generalization and maintenance of intervention success. In order to provide students who have severely limited communication skills with the ability to request reinforcers, the present study incorporated the use of vocal output communication devices for use with FCT.…”

The Effects of Self-monitoring on Homework Completion and Accuracy Rates of Students with Disabilities in an Inclusive General Education Classroom

“…For self-monitoring to be effective, strategies should be used constantly and overtly at first and then faded to less frequent and more subtle use across time (Craft, Alber, & Heward, 1998;Stainback & Stainback, 1980). It is also important to ensure that students understand the skills or behaviors that are to be self-monitored.…”

“…For students requiring individualized programs, self-monitoring procedures provide the prompts required for a student to independently accomplish a task or routine (Craft et al, 1998). Self-monitoring can be utilized in all areas including homework completion, monitoring appropriate behavior, and academic progress (Hughes & Boyle, 1991;Shimabukuro et al, 1999).…”