This study investigated the generalized effects of the Guess, Sailor, and Baer (1976) language training program on the structural aspects of six severely retarded institutionalized adolescents' productive language. The subjects were studied longitudinally for periods ranging from 16 to 31 months, during which time each progressed through part of the training program. In all, a total of 73 two-, three-, and four-word syntactic forms were trained to criterion. Verbatim language samples were concurrently collected in the subjects' classrooms, dining rooms, and living units. Forty-one (56%) of the trained forms were shown to generalize the subjects' actual usage repertoires. There was a strong relationship between the length of the trained forms and generalization. This effect was shown to be related to the subjects' MLUs. Almost no change occurred in the subjects' general language abilities. Strong relationships between number of training sessions and subjects' rate of verbalization, subjects' MLUs and rate of verbalization, and diversity of speech and rate of verbalization were found. Implications of these and other results are discussed.
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