Evaluation of tactile prompts with a student who is deaf, blind, and mentally retarded.
Texture prompts let deaf-blind students master packaging tasks and transfer to new items without starting over.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with a student who was deaf, blind, and had an intellectual disability.
They used small tactile prompts—tiny bumps and textures—glued to packaging materials.
A multiple-baseline design showed the prompts while the student assembled items for a mock job task.
What they found
Tactile cues raised the student’s accuracy on three different packaging tasks.
The student kept doing well when new, untrained materials were introduced.
Performance dropped if the prompts were removed, so the cues stayed in place for maintenance.
How this fits with other research
Bouck et al. (2016) later got the same kind of gain using audio prompts for price-comparison, showing the prompt type can change while the effect holds.
Evans et al. (2024) extended the idea to college students with hearing loss, swapping tactile bumps for computer-delivered sign prompts and still seeing strong skill gains.
Allen et al. (2001) used a wristwatch instead of tactile prompts to maintain low aerophagia after physical guidance ended—both studies fade prompts to a wearable cue that stays with the learner.
Why it matters
If you teach learners with dual sensory loss, add texture cues to task materials—felt dots, raised tape, or sandpaper squares. These cheap marks can replace visual checklists and still give clear instruction. When materials change, keep the same tactile “signature” so the learner transfers skills without full retraining.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We provided tactile cues to a student who was deaf, blind, and mentally retarded to guide her performance on a variety of packaging tasks. The student had previously received extensive training on multiple packaging and sequencing tasks through her vocational education program. Although she was able to complete these tasks, each change in materials necessitated that similar levels of retraining be conducted in order for her to perform revised tasks. Tactile cues were introduced and evaluated through a multiple baseline with sequential withdrawal design for two envelope-stuffing tasks and one bagging task. Results indicated that the tactile prompts were effective in guiding her performance on the training task and in promoting generalization to novel tasks and cues. Continued use of the cues was necessary to maintain the student's performance. Our findings suggest that tactile prompts function similarly to picture prompts and may be an effective alternative external prompting system for persons for whom picture prompts would not be appropriate.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1989 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1989.22-93