GENERALIZATION EFFECTS FROM INTRATHERAPY ARTICULATION TRAINING: A CASE STUDY1

This study analyzed generalization effects found associated with a language-training intervention to modify the articulation (/f/ phoneme) of a 3.5-year-old boy. The McLean and Raymore Stimulus Shift Articulation Program was implemented by the subject's mother. This language training program is designed to produce setting generalization effects based on an intratherapy training model (i.e., systematic training is applied in a single setting to promote transfer effects to nontraining environments). The intervention resulted in a significant improvement in the subject's production of the /f/ phoneme within the clinical setting in response to untrained stimuli (stimulus generalization). Additionally, the subject's correct phoneme production was observed to generalize to his home and school settings (setting generalization) under “opportunity loaded” (picture prompts) and “spontaneous” (no prompts) conditions. The results provide case-study evidence that stimulus generalization, both within and across settings, may occur with exclusively intratherapy articulation training.     

A review of behavioral procedures to teach motor skills to individuals with severe disabilities

Behavioral procedures are one approach to teaching or improving the fluency of motor skills of individuals with severe disabilities. This article provides a review of behavioral procedures by highlighting antecedents, consequences, and multifaceted techniques. Investigations are reviewed in each area according to (a) replicability of the intervention, (b) experimental control, (c) maintenance, (d) generalization, and (e) social validation. Practitioner implications address selection of reinforcers, reinforcement schedules, and teaching within meaningful routines. Future research recommendations highlight the need for documenting that stimuli are actually reinforcers. Additional research needs emphasize targeting maintenance, generalization, and social validation.     

Generalization of social skills to peer interactions in a child with language delays

Researchers in this study have attempted to determine whether integrating generalization promoting strategies into intervention procedures would enhance the generalization and maintenance of social skills to peer interactions in a preschoold child with language delays. This intervention took place in the natural environment of the day care facility where the child was enrolled. A multiple baseline across behaviors design addressed social response behavior, approach behavior, and play organizers. The intervention utilized a prompting and social reinforcement procedure with minimal adaptations of the onging classroom activities to systematically improve the target child's peer interactions. Several generalization promoting strategies were also used. Improvements in all three types of behavior and generalization of treatment effects across persons, settings, and time were observed. These results lend support for the value of integrating several generalization promoting strategies pre-experimentally into the intervention instead of relying on post hoc evaluation of intervention. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

APPLICATION OF THE “GENERALIZATION MAP” TO A SELF-CONTROL INTERVENTION WITH SCHOOL-AGED CHILDREN

The assessment of generalization has become a priority of applied behavior analysis. This study provided a thorough assessment of the generality of a comprehensive self-control intervention. This intervention incorporated a number of self-management skills and was designed to increase the math performance of an underachieving student in a regular elementary school classroom. All possible classes of generalization as outlined by Drabman, Hammer, and Rosenbaum (1979) were assessed. An ABAB design with follow-up was used to determine the effectiveness of the intervention for the treated student's math performance in the school setting as well as the degree of generalization across the following untreated dimensions: behavior (disruptiveness); setting (home); subject (classmate); and time period (follow-up). The effective intervention produced: subject, behavior, subject-behavior, setting, subject-setting, behavior-setting, subject-behavior-setting, time, subject-time, setting-time, subject-setting-time, and subject-behavior-setting-time generalization. Generalization was not obtained for behavior-time, subject-behavior-time, and behavior-setting-time generalization. Features of this intervention which may have promoted generalization are discussed.     

Promoting Generalization of Reading: A Comparison of Two Fluency-Based Interventions for Improving General Education Student’s Oral Reading Rate

The generalization effects of empirically-supported fluency-based reading interventions have been largely ignored. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of two fluency-based reading interventions, Repeated Readings and Multiple Exemplars, on elementary-aged children’s immediate and generalized oral reading fluency rate. Using a within-subjects group design, a total of 42 second (n = 25) and fourth (n = 17) grade general education students were administered both interventions and their generalized responding to passages containing high word and medium word overlap was assessed. Results indicated that children’s oral fluency on intervention passages was significantly greater during the Repeated Readings intervention. However, children’s oral reading fluency on generalization passages containing medium word overlap was significantly greater following the Multiple Exemplars intervention. This difference was however possibly due to the Multiple Exemplar medium word overlap passage being easier for students to read. No significant differences between the two interventions were observed in children’s oral reading fluency on generalization passages containing high word overlap. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed in relation to improving students’ reading fluency on generalization passages.     

Spacing Simultaneously Promotes Multiple Forms of Learning in Children's Science Curriculum

The spacing effect refers to the robust finding that long‐term memory is promoted when learning events are distributed in time rather than massed in immediate succession. The current study extended research on the spacing effect by examining whether spaced learning schedules can simultaneously promote multiple forms of learning, such as memory and generalization, in the context of an educational intervention. Thirty‐six early elementary school‐aged children were presented with science lessons on one of three schedules: massed, clumped, and spaced. At a 1‐week delayed test, children in the spaced condition demonstrated improvements in both memory and generalization, significantly outperforming children in the other conditions. However, there was no observed relationship between children's memory performance and generalization performance. The current study highlights directions for future research and contributes to a growing body of work demonstrating the benefits of spaced learning for educational curriculum. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Promoting Teachers’ Generalization of Intervention Use Through Goal Setting and Performance Feedback

Consultation is beneficial for increasing teachers’ intervention use for target students. However, little is known about teachers’ generalized intervention use. This study is a systematic replication of Riley-Tillman and Eckert (J Educ Psychol Consult 12:217–241, 2001) and Martens et al. (Sch Psychol Q 12:33–41, 1997) and examines effects of generalization training with goal setting and a feedback note on teachers’ specific labeled praise (SLP) toward target and non-target students. Participants were three teachers who referred students exhibiting disruptive behaviors. Initially, all teachers displayed low levels of SLP toward target and non-target students. Intervention training with the incorporation of goal setting and a daily feedback note increased teachers’ SLP toward target students. SLP toward non-target students also increased, but to a lesser extent. When feedback was withdrawn and generalization to other students was suggested, SLP decreased. Following generalization training with goal setting and a feedback note, all teachers increased SLP toward non-target students. SLP toward target students, however, was low for all teachers. Changes in target students’ disruptive behaviors are also reported. Results suggest that generalization training may be necessary to increase teachers’ SLP toward non-target students, but that additional support for treatment integrity maintenance may also be required. Results are discussed in terms of limitations and directions for future research.     

The effects of programming common stimuli for enhancing stimulus generalization of academic behavior

Programming common stimuli is a strategy for generalizing behavior across settings (Stokes & Baer, 1977). The present study programmed common stimuli (i.e., goal statement and use of a pictorial icon) to generalize the effects of a reinforcement-based intervention for students identified as either developmentally delayed or emotionally disturbed. Results supported the effectiveness of the strategy in producing generalized responding from training to the generalization setting. The importance of methodological rigor in future research exploring generalization and the need to compare generalization strategies are discussed.     

Generalization of Supermarket Shopping Skills for Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disabilities Using Stimulus Equivalence Training

The Psychological Record - We developed an intervention to promote generalization in an applied community setting. The intervention was derived primarily from experimental research examining...     

Effects of word overlap on generalized gains from a repeated readings intervention

We compared children's gains in oral reading fluency after applying a standard fluency-building intervention to three training passages that differed in word overlap (high, low, and multiple exemplar) with an untrained generalization passage. Participants were 132 White and Hispanic third-grade children from two schools in the northeast and mountain west. Children were randomly assigned within classrooms to the three word overlap conditions, pre-tested on their assigned training and a common generalization passage, received a fluency-building intervention on their assigned training passage, and then post-tested on the same two passages. Regression analyses were conducted to examine the effects of word overlap condition on the children's fluency gains after controlling for pre-test fluency and classroom. Results revealed significantly larger priming and generalization effects for the multiple exemplar versus both the low- and high-word overlap conditions. Survival curves showed that a significantly larger proportion of children in the multiple exemplar condition survived as generalized responders at all generalization levels relative to the other two conditions. Implications for assessing and promoting generalized oral reading fluency in response-to-intervention models and directions for future research are discussed.     

Generalizing Teaching Techniques from University to K-12 Classrooms: Teaching Preservice Teachers to Use What They Learn

Preservice teachers learn evidence-based practices in university classrooms but often fail to use them later on in their own K-12 classrooms. The problem may be a missing link in teacher preparation, i.e., failure to teach preservice teachers to generalize newly acquired techniques. Two experiments using multiple baseline designs across participants assessed effectiveness of a model to promote generalization and maintenance of a specific teaching skill. In Experiment 1, preservice teachers’ maintenance of behavior deteriorated from practicum to student teaching when intervention consisted of training to criteria alone. When a programming for generalization component (program common stimuli) was added to the intervention, teachers in Experiment 2 generalized and maintained behavior across settings (student teaching to own classrooms) at a higher average than occurred during intervention.     

An experimental analysis of peer social initiations on the behavior of withdrawn preschool children: Some training and generalization effects

In this study, positive social initiations by an age-peer was evaluated as an intervention for isolate preschool children in training and generalization sessions. During baseline, the confederate made few social approaches to the target subjects. The confederate greatly increased his rate of positive social initations during the first intervention, decreased social approaches during a second baseline, and increased social approaches again in a second intervention phase. Increases in confederate initiations resulted in an immediate acceleration in the frequency of subjects' positive social behavior during training sessions. Additionally, for two of the three subjects, positive social behaviors were also observed to increase during generalization sessions. The results suggest that (a) peers may be trained successfully to set the occasion for positive social behaviors by withdrawn classmates, (b) increased social responding by withdrawn children in the presence of frequent peer social initiations may also generalize beyond the training setting, and (c) the magnitude of direct and generalization effects appears to be related to the entry-level repertoire of target children.     

The acceptability and feasibility of an anxiety reduction intervention for emergency department patients with non-cardiac chest pain

Despite good physical prognosis, patients who receive a diagnosis of non-cardiac chest pain (NCCP) may experience persistent pain and distress. While cognitive-behavioural interventions have been found to be effective for this group, they are difficult to deliver in busy emergency department (ED) settings. Addressing the acceptability and relevance of self-help interventions is an important initial step in addressing this need. This study sought to examine the acceptability and relevance of an evidence-based self-help intervention for ED patients with persistent NCCP and anxiety. Patient (interviews: N = 11) and specialist chest pain nurse (focus group: N = 4) views on acceptability and feasibility were examined. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Patients and nurses reported that there was a need for the intervention, as stress and anxiety are common among patients with NCCP, and provision of psychosocial support is currently lacking. Both patients and nurses reported that the intervention was relevant, acceptable, and potentially useful. Some changes to the intervention were suggested. Nurses reported that the intervention could be used within the existing staff resources available in an ED setting. This study represents an important first step towards developing a brief self-help intervention for ED patients with NCCP and anxiety. Further research should seek to determine the efficacy of the intervention in a pilot trial.     

The use of matrix training to promote generative language with children with autism

Matrix training consists of planning instruction by arranging components of desired skills across 2 axes. After training with diagonal targets that each combine 2 unique skill components, responses to nondiagonal targets, consisting of novel combinations of the components, may emerge. A multiple‐probe design across participants was used to evaluate matrix training with known nouns (e.g., cat) and verbs (e.g., jumping) with 5 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Following baseline of Matrix 1 and a generalization matrix, diagonal targets within Matrix 1 were trained as noun–verb combinations (e.g., cat jumping). Posttests showed recombinative generalization within Matrix 1 and the generalization matrix for 4 participants. For 1 participant, diagonal training across multiple matrices was provided until correct responding was observed in the generalization matrix. Results support the use of matrix training to promote untrained responses for learners with ASD and offer a systematic way to evaluate the extent of generalization within and across matrices.     

Problem-solving skills training for psychiatric inpatients: An analysis of generalization

A program for teaching problem-solving skills was evaluated with six psychiatric inpatients in a multiple baseline across groups design. Subjects received training on 12 problem situations and the generalization of verbal problem-solving to six novel situations was assessed via probes presented by a novel person in an untrained setting. The generalization of overt behavior was assessed via pre/post contrived in vivo assessments that contained six situations used in training. The in vivo situations were integrated within a sequence of ongoing events in an effort to enhance the ‘naturalness’ of the assessment. The probes revealed some improvement in verbal problem-solving skills, whereas minimal improvement occurred in the post in vivo test. Following the study, an attempt was made to enhance performance by having the trainer conduct a probe and adding verbal prompts to evoke problem-solving during an additional in vivo assessment. Both efforts produced improvements in subjects' performance to a level near that achieved by a normative sample of 20 individuals. The results suggest that in vivo problem-solving may be dependent on the methods used in presenting problem situations as well as situational factors. Issues related to these results and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Diagnosis,assessment, and comorbidity in psychosocial treatment research

This paper identifies problems in prevailing terminology and conceptual models that may hinder research on treatment. To avoid the multiple meanings of diagnosis,the term assessmentis used in reference to identifying the distinguishing features of individual cases, while taxonomyis used to designate the grouping of cases according to their distinguishing features. Treatment research requires clear specification of the behavioral/emotional problems and competencies targeted for intervention. Artifactual comorbidity can be avoided by specifying treatment targets at several levels, including competencies, specific problems, syndromes, profiles of syndrome scores, and global problem scores. To select subjects for treatment research and to evaluate outcomes, multisource data can be coordinated by using a cross-informant computer program, taxonomic decision tree, and averaging of multisource standard scores. This work was supported by NIMH grant MH40305 and W. T. Grant Foundation grant 92145892.     

Measuring global bystander intervention and exploring its antecedents for helping refugees

Although the bystander intervention model provides a useful account of how people help others, no previous study has applied it to a global emergency. This research aims to develop a scale for measuring global bystander intervention and investigate its potential antecedents in the Syrian refugee emergency. In Study 1 (N = 80) and Study 2 (N = 205), a 12-item scale was established through a substantive-validity assessment and a confirmatory factor analysis, respectively. Study 3 (N = 601) explored the potential antecedents of the global bystander intervention, employing British and German samples. Results show that the global bystander intervention model worked for both samples, but there were significant between-group differences in terms of the extent to which they notice the emergency, know how to help, show political support, and donate money. Overall, the visibility of the global emergency aftermaths within the context has been deduced as a meaningful driver for between-group differences. This research provides the first empirical evidence on global bystander intervention and it offers timely suggestions to promote support for refugees or other victims of global disasters, especially among those who are distant to the disaster zone.     

Effects of textual prompts and feedback on social niceties of adolescents with autism spectrum disorder in a simulated workplace

Previous research demonstrates the efficacy of behavioral skills training with a textual prompt to establish greetings and conversational skills. This study examined the efficacy of a brief intervention of textual prompts with performance feedback for increasing social niceties of adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder in a simulated workplace. Target social niceties included “Do you have a minute?” when a participant initiated an interaction and “Thank you for your time” when a participant ended the interaction. Results revealed this intervention was effective for 7 of 9 participants. This study expands upon previous studies by showing the efficacy of a resource-efficient training on acquisition and generalization of social niceties by people with autism spectrum disorder.     

From Emic to Etic: Exporting Indigenous Constructs

The study of culture differs by methodology. This article distinguishes etic (global) and emic (focal) approaches to cross-cultural research, and uses empirical studies in personality and social psychology as examples to illustrate the pros and cons of these two approaches and examine their relationships. Then, the article reviews origins and trends of research on several culturally derived constructs, including face, harmony, filial piety, and modesty. The import and export processes of pan-cultural and indigenous constructs reveal that generalization and indigenization are interrelated, complementary. It is suggested that cultural similarities and differences be better conceptualized as malleable and dynamic, and that etic and emic approaches can be integrated to form a unified system, balancing universality and distinctiveness.