Acquisition and generalization of instruction following behavior in profoundly retarded individuals

Four profoundly retarded male residents of a state institution learned to comply with the instructions "come here," "stay," and "sit." Acquisition occurred in a special therapy room and instructions were presented in a fixed sequence. All subjects learned to comply with the instructions in the training environment. Testing occurred in the subject's ward dayroom where instructions were presented in a random sequence. Despite dramatic changes in the stimulus conditions associated with the transfer to the testing situation the subjects performed close to their asymptotic level. Three experimentally naive subjects participated in a second experiment which was similar to the first, except that the number of acquisition sessions and the number of trials per session were reduced. The reduction in number of acquisition trials did not appear to affect performance in the testing environment. The possibility of terminating off-task behavior of institutionalized individuals by eliciting previously acquired instruction following behavior was discussed.