Providing Choice Making Opportunities Within and Between Daily School Routines

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of providing choice making opportunities, embedded within and between daily school routine activities, on the frequency of protests and task initiations exhibited by a student with a severe intellectual disability. An ABABC single-subject design was used to evaluate the effects of choice making opportunities embedded within and between three daily routine activities. During phase A, the classroom staff directed the student's participation without providing choice making opportunities within the activities. In phase B, staff provided choice making opportunities embedded within steps of each activity. Phase C extended choice making opportunities by providing the participant with a choice between activities as well as within the steps of the activities after it was noted that the first step of beginning the activities occasioned more protests than the other steps. The results of this study replicate earlier research showing that embedded choice making opportunities within routines reduced protests and increased task initiations. The addition of choice making opportunities between activities during phase C further reduced the incidents of protests.