The effects of single instance, multiple instance, and general case training on generalized vending machine use by...

Area of Science:

• Behavioral analysis
• Special education
• Applied behavior analysis

Background:

• Students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities often face challenges in generalizing learned skills.
• Vending machine use is a practical daily living skill that requires generalization for independent application.

Purpose of the Study:

• To experimentally analyze and compare three distinct strategies for teaching generalized vending machine use.
• To determine the most effective training method for promoting skill generalization in students with intellectual disabilities.

Main Methods:

• A multiple-baseline design across six high school students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities.
• Comparison of three training conditions: single machine, three similar machines, and three diverse machines representing stimulus and response variation.
• Measurement of dependent variables including trials to criterion and performance on untrained generalization vending machines.

Main Results:

• Training with three machines that sampled the range of stimulus and response variation was the most effective strategy.
• This diverse training approach yielded superior generalized responding compared to single or similar machine training.
• All students demonstrated improved vending machine use and generalization capabilities.

Conclusions:

• Training with a diverse set of machines significantly enhances the generalization of vending machine use for students with intellectual disabilities.
• This finding has programmatic implications for designing effective interventions to teach generalized behaviors.
• Methodological considerations for analyzing generalization in applied behavior analysis are highlighted.