Teaching the Handicapped to Eat in Public Places: Acquisition, Generalization and Maintenance of Restaurant Skills

Abstract

This study examined classroom-based instruction in restaurant skills for handicapped persons. Three male students were taught each of four skill components in sequential order: locating, ordering, paying, and eating and exiting. Training was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects and consisted of modeling and role playing in conjunction with photo slide sequences and a simulated ordering counter. The use of a menu containing general item classes and a finger matching procedure for identifying errors in the delivery of change greatly reduced the reading and math skills necessary to enter and complete the program. Periodic probes were conducted in a McDonald's restaurant prior to, during, and up to one-year following the termination of training. In addition, two probes (overt and covert observation) were conducted in a Burger King restaurant to assess further generalization to a location different from the one depicted throughout training. Results showed that students' performance on restaurant probes improved as a result of training, generalized to novel settings, maintained over an extended period of time, and was comparable to that of a normative sample of nonretarded persons.

Comparison of Three Strategies for Teaching Generalized Grocery Purchasing to High School Students with Severe Handicaps

“…Many different ac tivities and skills have been trained including social skills (Bates, 1980), use of a polaroid camera (Giangreco, 1983), bus riding (Certo, Schwartz, & Brown, 1977), pedestrian skills (Page, Iwata, & Neef, 1976), clothing selection (Nutter & Reid, 1978), use of fast food restaurants (Van der Pol, Iwata, Ivancie, Page, Neef, & Whitley, 1981), making emergency telephone calls (Risely & Cuvo, 1980), and home safe ty routines (Matson, 1980). While these studies docu ment that simulating natural stimulus conditions can result in generalized performance, the measurement of generalization has often been limited to a small number of natural environments (Giangreco, 1983;Page et al, 1976;Van der Pol et al, 1981) or to a restricted number of additional simulated situations (Bates, 1980;Nutter & Reid, 1978;Risely & Cuvo, 1980;Matson, 1980). At this point it is unclear whether simulations hold sufficient instructional power to pro duce generalized performance across the range of en vironments in which the activity would normally occur.…”

Eight Steps to School-Based Employment Training for Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Intellectual Disability

“…Classrooms with these items can easily be converted into a restaurant setting (see Figure 1). Although community-based instructional environments are considered ideal, researchers have also spent decades documenting the impact of classroom instruction in simulated settings and their positive impact on skills such as ordering meals, (Pol, Iwata, Ivancic, Page, Neef, & Whitley, 1981), shopping for groceries (McDonnell, Horner, & Williams, 1984), using public transportation (Mechling & O'Brien, 2010;Neef, Iwata, & Page, 1978), as well as domestic and vocational skills (Bates, Cuvo, Miner, & Korabek, 2001) among adolescents and adults with disabilities. Through collaboration with local community businesses and integration of an inclusive vocational program as part of the school community, the classroom can be transformed into one that capitalizes on many of the beneficial components that communitybased instruction offers.…”

When the Best is not Good Enough

“…For example, to determine that community-based training programs are best practice would require the practitioner to demonstrate that training in isolated settings produced a level of effect, but that training in neighborhood settings was more efficacious for the learner (cf. van den Pol et al, 1981). Corroboration would be based in the literature pertaining to generality training.…”