Two-to-one versus one-to-one student-teacher ratios in the operant verbal training of retarded children.
Teaching two kids together in DTT beats one-to-one drills for speed and total pictures learned.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Jones et al. (1977) compared two ways to run discrete-trial picture naming drills. One teacher worked with two kids at once. Another teacher worked with one kid alone.
All kids had intellectual disability. Sessions moved fast: teacher flashed a picture, waited for the name, scored correct or wrong, and gave tokens for rights.
What they found
The 2:1 group hit more correct answers per minute. They also mastered more pictures in the same amount of time.
Kids learned from each other. When one child answered, the other often copied the right name.
How this fits with other research
Richman et al. (2001) later used the same 2:1 idea with preschoolers with autism. They added overlapping trials so both kids could respond at once. Skills still climbed, showing the 1977 result holds for a younger, different population.
Sanford et al. (1980) worked with the same single-child setup but played with reinforcement schedules. They found that steady praise for correct probe answers sped up learning. You can combine that tip with the 2:1 format to squeeze out even more gains.
Hineline (1987) looked at group versus individual overcorrection for reading errors. Group delivery cut teacher time in half and created bonus learning, matching the efficiency story seen here.
Why it matters
If your caseload is bursting, pair two learners for DTT instead of running separate tables. Keep responses quick, rotate who answers first, and reinforce each correct response. You save staff minutes and still hit acquisition targets while kids pick up extra skills from their peer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The operant training of two retarded children simultaneously on a picture‐naming task was investigated as an alternative to the more commonly reported one‐to‐one student‐teacher ratio. In Experiment I, two conditions were compared in which the children received primary reinforcement on a fixed‐ratio schedule for responding correctly on prompt and probe trials in a standardized picture‐naming procedure. During the “Group Condition”, the experimenter alternated from one child to the other after each primary reinforcement, after each incorrect response, after each response omission, and after each 10‐sec period in which a child did not “attend” (by making a trial‐initiating response) when it was his or her turn to be worked with. During the “Individual Condition”, the experimenter worked with only one child, and presented trials whenever the child made attending responses. Experiment I demonstrated that the Group Condition was more efficient than the Individual Condition in terms of total correct responses and total pictures learned per unit of training time. Incidental learning was also found in that the children learned some of each others' pictures as well as their own, thus indicating a further advantage of the larger student‐teacher ratio. In Experiment II, an attempt was made to equate the two conditions, except for the presence of two children in the Group Condition, by ignoring the child in the Individual Condition for brief periods equal to those that occurred in the Group Condition when the experimenter presented training trials to the other child. The results demonstrated that the greater efficiency of the Group Condition was not due to the manner in which training time was allocated to the two members of a group. It also replicated the finding that the children learned some of each others' words in the Group Condition.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1977 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1977.10-506