Acquisition of generalized telephone use by students with moderate and severe mental retardation

This study examines the effects of one approach for selecting teaching examples on the development of generalized telephone skills with moderately and severely mentally retarded high school students. Four subjects were taught to make and receive telephone calls within a counterbalanced multiple baseline design. The primary dependent variable was generalization of telephone skills to nontrained telephone situations in home, school, and community settings. Results document the effectiveness and efficiency of the training approach. An eighteen-month validation assessment also shows that telephone use continued as a regular part of each student's lifestyle. The instructional implications of these results are discussed as well as methodological implications for applied research on generalization.