Establishing the manding function of communicative gestures with individuals with severe/profound mental retardation.
Procedures for teaching communicative gestures to individuals with mental retardation are focused mostly on establishing requesting or manding. It is often taken for granted that when a student has been taught to make a request, that he or she is indeed manding. Five students with severe/profound mental retardation accepted referents, regardless of whether the referents matched the gestures they made. Apparently, their responding could not be defined as manding. A correction procedure, including interruption, physical guidance, verbal instruction, and repetition, was then applied and increased the individuals' correct rejecting of unmatching referents. Data were collected within a multiple baseline design across individuals. It is suggested that assessing student's response when the trainer or teacher delivers items that do not match the referent of a prior request is a necessary part of each training program.
Duker
P C
PC
PROCESS Research Group, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Dortmans
A
A
Lodder
E
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D003145:Communication Methods, Total; D004495:Education of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005868:Gestures; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011939:Mental Recall; D012813:Sign Language