Case Study in Training Generalized Instruction-Following Responses to Preposition-Noun Combinations in a Severely Retarded Young Adult

Abstract

In this study a 16-year-old severely retarded male was trained to respond to instructional requests that included the prepositions “in,” “on,” and “beside.” The training consisted of presenting untrained nouns and prepositions in isolation to develop appropriate discriminations before combining them into multiple-word phrases. Once discrimination was established between four direct-object nouns, four prepositions, and four prepositional-object nouns, the subject was trained briefly to respond to two-word combinations that included a direct object and a prepositional object. Following this training, there were increases in the subject's correct responses to untrained two-word requests and to expanded, untrained phrases containing random combinations of four direct objects, four prepositions, and four prepositional objects. The accuracy of the instruction-following response was evaluated in a second experiment in which the experimenter altered the structure and delivery of the instructional request. When the experimenter added irrelevant cues to the three-word request, “put the ___ ___ the ___,” the subject's accuracy decreased; and when the experimenter paused between the third and fourth words, e.g., “put the ___ (pause) ___ the ___,” accuracy increased. These results indicated that generalization to new instructional forms may depend upon training in the appropriate responses to relevant and irrelevant verbal cues as well as to different styles of delivering the request.