Generalizing articulation training with trainable mentally retarded subjects.
Articulation gains stay put only after you train the same target in at least two places with two adults.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four adults with intellectual disability practiced saying hard words.
A teacher showed a picture, said the word, and had the learner repeat it.
They used a multiple-baseline design across word sets.
Training happened in one room with one trainer.
What they found
The new words sounded great in that room.
Outside the room the words fell apart.
Only after a second trainer worked in a second room did the words stick everywhere.
Generalization needed at least two places and two people.
How this fits with other research
Aravamudhan et al. (2020) got the same kind of kids with autism to say new blends.
They also used picture prompts and praise.
Their kids even said untrained words right, showing wider generalization.
The 1977 paper and the 2020 paper agree: prompt, fade, and praise works.
The newer study just pushed the skill further.
Ledbetter-Cho et al. (2016) and Bergstrom et al. (2012) used BST to teach safety skills.
They saw the same rule: train in more than one spot or the skill stays stuck.
Different skills, same fix.
Why it matters
If you want clear speech to travel, plan two trainers in two rooms from day one.
Add a parent, a peer, or the lunch aide.
Run the same five-minute trial in each spot.
You will save weeks of re-training later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A multiple-baseline technique was used to evaluate generalization effects during articulation training with trainable mentally retarded subjects. Four target words were selected for each subject on the basis of whether the subject could articulate the word correctly when it was modelled but could not articulate the word correctly in response to a picture of it. Five different settings were selected for generalization probing and training for each subject. In Setting 1, Experimenter 1 initiated training sequentially on all four target words for each subject. Other experimenters probed for correct articulation generalization in four other settings. Training was initiated in these four other settings sequentially only if correct responding failed to generalize to a setting. Results indicated that it was necessary to initiate training on at least three of the four selected target words in at least one additional setting with an additional trainer before correct responding generalized to untrained settings.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1977 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1977.10-717