Empirically-Erived Teaching Package for Socially Withdrawn Handicapped and Nonhandicapped Children

Abstract

A teaching package designed to increase social interaction of handicapped children was evaluated by assessing concurrent changes in teachers' and young children's behavior following introduction of the instructional package. Three questions were addressed in this study: Would the training package increase the teachers' use of specified instructional responses? Would the package enable teachers to identify the appropriate target social responses and to emit their instructional responses in relationship to the targeted responses? If the teachers used the teaching procedure appropriately, would there be accompanying changes in the social behavior of the children? Nine teachers and 21 children (three children per teacher) participated in the study. The results indicated that eight of the nine teachers substantially changed their instructional behavior after the introduction of the teaching materials. Six of the nine groups of children increased their use of the appropriate social interaction as the teachers began to use the teaching strategies.

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