Assessment of Stimuli Controlling the Requests of Students With Severe Mental Retardation During a Snack Routine

Abstract

This study assessed stimuli controlling requests during a snack routine after extensive request training with a delayed prompt procedure. During training sessions, one of three three-item snack groups was presented to 3 subjects with severe mental retardation. Assessment sessions involved (a) training conditions (all items were visible), (b) presenting two of three items from a particular group, or (c) presenting no items. One subject requested food items when no food items were present, 2 frequently requested a missing item when the two other items were visible, and all subjects requested visible items. Procedures for assessing stimulus control, such as those described in the current paper, should lead to a better understanding of the variables controlling behaviors that initially appear perplexing and unpredictable.

Testing for spontaneous use of requests after sign language training with two severely handicapped adults

“…Consistent with previous research (i.e., Halle & Holt, 1991;Schussler & Spradlin, 1991), individual differences were found. These results suggest that, even with identical training histories, the stimuli which gain control of requests during intervention may vary across learners.…”

“…However, it is possible that these delays may have simply provided the opportunity to observe requests at an earlier point in the sequence. Schussler and Spradlin (1991) suggested that control could spread to earlier steps in a sequence when these are reliable precursors to an already effective discriminative stimulus. In their study, the presence of one item from a set of three was viewed as a precursor to the presentation of all three items.…”

“…Halle & Holt, 1991;Schussler & Spradlin, 1991). A unique aspect of the present study was its analysis of stimulus control in terms of a continuum of spontaneity (Halle, 1987).…”

“…A similar goal was pursued by Schussler and Spradlin (1991). They first taught three adolescents with moderatekevere mental retardation to request snack foods when presented in groups of three (e.g., crackers, cheese, juice).…”

Functional Analysis of Communicative Behaviors

“…Similar methods may be applied to hypotheses about other types of communicative behaviors. For example, if the interview and direct observation data suggest that a learner requests preferred food items only when those items are visible, situational probes can be constructed alternating the presence and absence of the foods in the lunch room (Schussler & Spradlin, 1991).…”