Abstract
Recent research has indicated that students can acquire non-targeted information (i.e., stimuli not directly targeted for instruction) when presented as instructive feedback. Other research has shown that students with mild intellectual disabilities can acquire up to two additional responses (i.e., non-target information) related to the target skill. However, no studies have yet to investigate the possibility of students with moderate intellectual disabilities acquiring two pieces of non-target information through instructive feedback. Additionally, minimal research has investigated whether instructive feedback has to be presented on every trial for student acquisition of the information to occur. In this study, an adapted alternating treatments design assessed not only the effectiveness of simultaneous prompting in teaching environmental word identification, but also the acquisition of instructive feedback stimuli that was presented on either a continuous or an intermittent presentation schedule. The teacher, during the consequent event, provided two different pieces of non-target information about each targeted environmental word. For these five students with moderate intellectual disabilities, data indicated that (a) simultaneous prompting procedures were effective in teaching all students the targeted stimuli (i.e., environmental words), (b) all students acquired the additional instructive feedback stimuli regardless of the presentation schedule used, and (c) minimal differences in efficiency occurred between the two presentation schedules on the acquisition of either the target or non-target information. Future research implications are discussed.
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