GENERALIZED LANGUAGE LEARNING BY CHILDREN WITH SEVERE MENTAL RETARDATION: EFFECTS OF PEERS' EXPRESSIVE MODELING

1989/09/01 by Howard Goldstein, Lori Mousetis · 12 citations
Psychology · #Behavioral and Psychological Studies #Reading and Literacy Development #Language Development and Disorders

paper · pdf · doi:10.1901/jaba.1989.22-245

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the conditions that contribute to observational learning of generalized language in children with severe mental retardation. Matrix-training strategies were used to teach 6 children with mental retardation to combine known words into two- or three-word utterances consistent with syntactic rules. Subsequently, the children learned two or more unknown words concurrently, inducing word-referent relations consistent with these word order rules. Generalized learning of responses not taught directly was shown to be under experimental control using a multiple baseline design across submatrices. Expressive modeling of only four or five responses was sufficient to promote recombinative generalization in the expressive and receptive modalities. Thus, 95% to 98% of subjects' learning was attributed to generalization processes. This study demonstrates how the efficiency of language training with children with mental retardation might be enhanced by coupling observational learning and matrix-training strategies.

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