Teaching a Student with Severe Handicaps to Self-Instruct: A Brief Report

Abstract

This case study reports an attempt to teach self-control procedures to a student preparing for employment. The student was taught to request production supplies under two situations: when he ran out of supplies and when there were not enough supplies to complete an order. The self-control procedure included self-instructional statements taught to the student during a preinstructional period. The results indicated that preinstruction did not result in the student generalizing his performance to the production period. Self-instructional statements were made during the production period only when systematic feedback was provided during the production period. Finally, preinstruction and nonverbal cues present during the actual work period were withdrawn without any loss in performance.