Generalized language learning by children with severe mental retardation: effects of peers' expressive modeling.
In this study, we investigated the conditions that contribute to observational learning of generalized language in children with severe mental retardation. Matrix-training strategies were used to teach 6 children with mental retardation to combine known words into two- or three-word utterances consistent with syntactic rules. Subsequently, the children learned two or more unknown words concurrently, inducing word-referent relations consistent with these word order rules. Generalized learning of responses not taught directly was shown to be under experimental control using a multiple baseline design across submatrices. Expressive modeling of only four or five responses was sufficient to promote recombinative generalization in the expressive and receptive modalities. Thus, 95% to 98% of subjects' learning was attributed to generalization processes. This study demonstrates how the efficiency of language training with children with mental retardation might be enhanced by coupling observational learning and matrix-training strategies.
Goldstein
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Department of Communication, University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260.
Mousetis
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D001521:Behavior Therapy; D002648:Child; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities; D005793:Generalization, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D010379:Peer Group; D012931:Social Environment; D014163:Transfer, Psychology; D014825:Vocabulary