Training Students With Profound or Multiple Handicaps to Make Requests via Microswitches

Abstract

In a series of three experiments, we evaluated the use of microswitches as a means for students with profound, multiple handicaps to demonstrate preferences between toys and to make requests for specific activities. In Experiment 1, 5 students learned to demonstrate toy preferences by using microswitches to activate battery-operated toys. Experiment 2 was conducted to evaluate the students' preferences for social attention. Microswitches were used to activate prerecorded messages that signaled the classroom teacher to attend to the students. In Experiment 3, the students used the switches and prerecorded messages to make specific requests of educational staff in school and community settings. Results of these experiments, evaluated within multiple baseline, alternating treatments, and simultaneous treatments designs, indicated that these students could request specific activities. Results are discussed with respect to the continued use of microswitches and to program development.

Teaching Persons With Profound Multiple Handicaps: A Review of the Effects of Behavioral Research

“…Similarly, it is not readily apparent, at least to us, how much therapeutic value exists in increasing an adult's touching and moving an infant toy extended on a toy holder in terms ofpurposeful skill development (although such behavior is dearly more desirable than no activity or maladaptive behavior). In essence, only two studies (Wacker et al, 1985(Wacker et al, , 1988 demonstrated that a person with profound multiple handicaps could acquire a skill meeting the generally accepted criterion of meaningfulness discussed earlier.…”

“…With the few exceptions noted earlier, the investigations employed adequate experimental designs (e.g., reversals, alternating treatments) and all induded interobserver agreement indices (or used electromechanical measures) regarding measurement of the dependent variables. All of the investigations also were conducted in the participants' routine environments (or very dose approximations thereof) in contrast to more artificial, laboratory-type settings that characterized many of the earlier studies, and one study involved a normal community setting (Wacker et al, 1988). Virtually all of the studies resulted in apparent behavior change (although not with all participants), and almost half induded follow-up measures to demonstrate the durability of the changes.…”

“…In one sense, if the commonly accepted notion regarding expected outcomes oftraining programs for persons with handicaps is employed (i.e., the development of independent functioning in adaptive skill areas), then the applied behavioral research has not been successful; the research has not demonstrated that persons with profound multiple handicaps can acquire any independent adaptive skills. Within even the most successful investigations ofteaching functional skills (e.g., Wacker et al, 1988), the assistance of a caregiver was necessary for the client to exhibit the newly acquired skills.…”

Assessing Food Preferences Among Persons With Profound Mental Retardation: Providing Opportunities to Make Choices

“…Also, traditional means of identifying client preferences and reinforcers, such as the subjective opinion of caregivers, often do not predict what clients will actually do when provided with a choice-making opportunity (Favell & Cannon, 1976;Green et al, 1988). Another outcome of the research to date is that persons with severe disabilities do indeed display a variety of definite preferences when they are provided with functional choice-making opportunities (Green et al, 1988;Wacker et al, 1988).…”

“…In general, applied behavioral research involving preference and reinforcer identification among persons who have severe handicaps has focused on two areas: leisure activities (e.g., Dattilo & Rusch, 1985;183 1990, 239 183-195 NUMBER2 (summER 1990) Wacker et al, 1988) and vocational situations (e.g., Mithaug & Mar, 1980;Parsons, Reid, Reynolds, & Bumgarner, 1990). Given the success ofresearch in these two areas, investigation is warranted to extend the developing preference and reinforcer assessment technology to other important areas, such as meals and snack times.…”