Generalization of social skills to peer interactions in a child with language delays

✍ Scribed by Christine Johnson; Jeannie Golden

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 260 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1072-0847
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-078x(199707)12:3<133::aid-brt171>3.0.co;2-a

✦ Synopsis

Researchers in this study have attempted to determine whether integrating generalization promoting strategies into intervention procedures would enhance the generalization and maintenance of social skills to peer interactions in a preschool child with language delays. This intervention took place in the natural environment of the day care facility where the child was enrolled. A multiple baseline across behaviors design addressed social response behavior, approach behavior, and play organizers. The intervention utilized a prompting and social reinforcement procedure with minimal adaptations of the onging classroom activities to systematically improve the target child's peer interactions. Several generalization promoting strategies were also used. Improvements in all three types of behavior and generalization of treatment effects across persons, settings, and time were observed. These results lend support for the value of integrating several generalization promoting strategies pre-experimentally into the intervention instead of relying on post hoc evaluation of intervention.