Treatment of psychotic children in a classroom environment: I. Learning in a large group.
Slowly adding classroom sights and sounds after one-to-one teaching moves new skills into real group lessons for young autistic students.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Eight autistic preschoolers first learned to attend, imitate, and name pictures in a quiet one-to-one corner.
Next, the team slowly added kindergarten cues: other kids at tables, teacher giving group directions, wall posters.
They kept the same teaching steps but let the classroom stimuli grow until each child could learn in the full group.
What they found
Every child quickly matched the teacher’s clap, looked when her name was called, and said new words while sitting with 15 classmates.
Skills held steady even when the extra adult help was pulled back.
The whole move from 1:1 to group took only a few weeks.
How this fits with other research
Pilgrim et al. (2000) did the same kind of fading 26 years later, but used picture schedules instead of teacher cues.
Szempruch et al. (1993) and Wichnick-Gillis et al. (2019) swapped the fading target again, this time fading written scripts so kids could start chats with peers at school and at home.
Cox et al. (2015) skipped fading altogether and simply placed one autistic child with two typical peers in small academic groups; the child still learned and gained social turns.
These newer studies do not clash with Hawkes et al. (1974); they just show more tools for the same job—moving from adult help to real classroom life.
Why it matters
You can copy this simple fade-in plan tomorrow. Start any new skill in a quiet spot. Then add one classroom element at a time—first the table, then two peers, then the teacher’s group signal. The child keeps the skill while the world around them grows.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Pick one mastered 1:1 skill and add a single classroom cue—like a peer sitting nearby—during the next trial.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate systematically the feasibility of modifying the behavior of autistic children in a classroom environment. In the first experiment, eight autistic children were taught certain basic classroom behaviors (including attending to the teacher upon command, imitation, and an elementary speaking and recognition vocabulary) that were assumed to be necessary for subsequent learning to take place in the classroom. Based on research documenting the effectiveness of one-to-one (teacher-child ratio) procedures for modifying such behaviors, these behaviors were taught in one-to-one sessions. It was, however, found that behaviors taught in a one-to-one setting were not performed consistently in a classroom-sized group, or even in a group as small as two children with one teacher. Further, the children evidenced no acquisition of new behaviors in a classroom environment over a four-week period. Therefore, Experiment II introduced a treatment procedure based upon "fading in" the classroom stimulus situation from the one-to-one stimulus situation. Such treatment was highly effective in producing both a transfer in stimulus control and the acquisition of new behaviors in a kindergarten/first-grade classroom environment.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1974 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1974.7-45