Teaching prevocational skills to EMR adolescents

A program for strengthening promptness and initiative behaviors was conducted with three educable, mentally retarded adolescents. The program consisted of three elements: (a) instructions on the responses desired and their importance, (b) a self-evaluation procedure, and (c) consequation of successful performance with social praise from the classroom teacher. The results supported the efficacy of the intervention package as a method for teaching two behaviors that are commonly emphasized in prevocational and vocational special education curricula.