Effects of daily probing on acquisition of instructive feedback responses

This study evaluated the effects of daily probes of instructive feedback stimuli on students' acquisition of two types of instructive feedback responses. Four students, two with disabilities, participated and were taught four sets of behaviors, two sets received daily probes and two sets did not. A modification of the multiple probe design across behaviors was used. The findings indicate that students acquired their target behaviors rapidly and maintained correct responding during subsequent probe conditions. Students also acquired both types of instructive feedback and maintained it across subsequent probe conditions. The daily probes of the instructive feedback stimuli did not appear to enhance acquisition or maintenance of the instructive feedback responses, but students appeared to acquire the instructive feedback responses while learning their target behaviors. The implications of this study for understanding how students learn instructive feedback responses and for practice are discussed.     

Including Manual Signing as Nontargeted Information When Using a Constant Time Delay Procedure to Teach Receptive Identification of Packaged Food Items

This investigation extends the constant time delay research base by embedding nontargeted information in the task direction when teaching communication skills. Specifically, instructors taught receptive identification of packaged food items to 4 secondary students with moderate to severe disabilities and evaluated generalization to the community. In addition, instructors included the manual sign for each food item. The instructional strategy was a constant time delay procedure using a 5-s delay interval. The intervention, conducted within a multiple probe design across behaviors replicated across students, resulted in the acquisition and generalization of receptive identification of packaged food items by 3 out of 4 of the students. In addition, the students acquired the nontargeted manual signs with an average of 60% percent in the final probe session.     

Using a modified constant prompt-delay procedure to teach spelling to students with physical disabilities

Current research suggests that constant delay is an effective means of teaching students through near-errorless learning. The current study examined how procedures used in previous research may be modified so that constant delay can be implemented with students who have physical disabilities that prevent them from engaging in fluent academic responding. A multiple baseline design with probes was used to assess the effectiveness of a modified constant-delay procedure in teaching spelling to students with physical disabilities. This procedure was found to be effective for all 3 students.     

Time-driven effects on parsing during reading

The phonological trace of perceived words starts fading away in short-term memory after a few seconds. Spoken utterances are usually 2-3 s long, possibly to allow the listener to parse the words into coherent prosodic phrases while they still have a clear representation. Results from this brain potential study suggest that even during silent reading, words are organized into 2-3 s long ‘implicit’ prosodic phrases. Participants read the same sentences word by word at different presentation rates. Clause-final words occurring at multiples of 2-3 s from sentence onset yielded increased positivity, irrespective of presentation rate. The effect was interpreted as a closure positive shift (CPS), reflecting insertion of implicit prosodic phrase boundaries every 2-3 s. Additionally, in participants with low working memory span, clauses over 3 s long produced a negativity, possibly indicating increased working memory load.