title: The role of overt and covert self-rules in establishing a daily living skill in adults with mild developmental disabilities.
abstract: The purpose of the current study was to explore the use of overt and covert self-rules in the acquisition, maintenance, and generalization of a chained task by adults with mild developmental disabilities. This research differed from previous research in that the experimenter did not deliver reinforcement for correct responses during training, and we examined the correspondence between each self-rule statement and each subsequent response on each trial. Results showed that the self-rules participated in control over participants' responding, in that the skill was acquired and shown to generalize in the absence of experimenter-delivered reinforcement. Moreover, performance was shown to deteriorate when the emission of overt, but not covert, self-rules was blocked.
authors.affiliation: Rehabilitation Services Program, Mailcode 4609, Rehabilitation Institute, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, Illinois 62901, USA.
authors.forename: Bridget J
authors.initials: BJ
authors.lastname: Faloon
authors.forename: Ruth Anne
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Rehfeldt
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011380:Programmed Instructions as Topic; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D012720:Severity of Illness Index; D012919:Social Behavior; D014888:Wechsler Scales