Team Sports for the Severely Retarded: Training a Side‐of‐the‐foot Soccer Pass Using a Maximum‐to‐minimum Prompt Reduction Strategy

Abstract

A program to teach three severely retarded adults to use a side-of-the-foot soccer pass was evaluated. A 9-step stimulus-response chain was taught using forward chaining. In contrast to usual practice, intensive physical prompts were provided initially to teach each response component, then systematically faded. Approximately 20 lessons (trials) were presented in 20-min sessions. A multiple baseline across subjects design showed that the three trainees achieved the no-prompt criterion after 24, 29, and 22 sessions, respectively. Subanalyses indicated that successive response components were learned only after training was implemented. Follow-up data were obtained 57 and 276 days later in the training room and in a gymnasium; in both settings, criterion was achieved with fewer than three reinstructions.

Negative Reinforcement in Applied Behavior Analysis: An Emerging Technology

“…However, less dramatic but analogous situations are quite common in the literature on instructional technology. It has become standard practice to follow errors with statements ofdisapproval (Dunlap & Johnson, 1985;Rincover & Newsom, 1985;Schreibman, 1975), physical guidance (Haring, 1985;Luyben, Funk, Morgan, Clark, & Delulio, 1986;Sprague & Homer, 1984), session-lengthening procedures consisting of either time-out (Barrera & Sulzer-Azaroff, 1983;O'Brien & Azrin, 1972) or remedial learning trials (Nutter & Reid, 1978;Page, Iwata, & Neef, 1976;Richman, Reiss, Bauman, & Bailey, 1984), and so on. Thus, in addition to producing positive reinforcement in the form of experimenter praise, correct responses also may function to avoid aversive social and physical stimulation and to effectively reduce the duration of training sessions (this latter point is potentially significant, for it has been shown that complex setting events or stimulus situations, and not just discrete stimuli, can function as negative reinforcers [Krasnegor, Brady, & Findley, 1971], and that reduction of avoidance-session durations can itself serve as negative reinforcement [Mellitz, Hineline, Whitehouse, & Laurence, 1983]).…”

The Effects of Errorless Learning and Backward Chaining on the Acquisition of Internet Skills in Adults With Developmental Disabilities

“…Several prior investigations have demonstrated effective methods for training leisure skills to individuals with developmental disabilities. For example, Luyben, Funk, Morgan, Clark, and Delulio (1986) trained 3 adults with mild mental retardation a side-of-the-foot soccer pass using chaining and prompting. The pass was analyzed into nine steps that were taught sequentially through forward chaining with a varying degree of prompts as training progressed.…”

Behavioral Sport Psychology

“…Depending on the number of behaviors involved, the initial acquisition of these response chains can be a time-consuming process requiring tens and even hundreds of prompted trials (e.g., Luyben, Funk, Morgan, Clark, & Delulio, 1986). Several methods for teaching chained responses have been reported in the literature and include backward chaining (teach behaviors in reverse order from the terminal response), forward chaining (teach behaviors in sequence starting with the initial response), and total task presentation (teach all behaviors each trial; Test, Spooner, Keul, & Grossi, 1990).…”