Simulation and Community-Based Instruction of Vending Machines with Time Delay

Abstract

An evaluation was made of the use of simulated instruction on vending machine use as an adjunct to community-based instruction. This evaluation was conducted with a pair of children with moderate mental retardation and replicated across a second pair in a multiple probe design. A treatment package was used across sites that included time delay to transfer stimulus control from teacher-delivered to naturally occurring cues. Results showed concurrent acquisition of the vending machine skills across trained and untrained sites, but revealed patterns that merit consideration in future research. Separate analysis of a difficult step in the task analysis (coin selection) showed that students needed more training trials for transfer to occur for this response. Implications for teaching community skills and needs for future research are discussed.