 |
||||||
|
||||||
|
 |
|
|
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
Find out in this Q&A with the editor of Real Life, Real Progress ... |
|
About the editor
 Christina Whalen, Ph.D., is a licensed psychologist and Board Certified Behavior Analyst specializing in autism and related disorders. She is President and Chief Science Officer of Jigsaw Learning. Dr. Whalen has more than 15 years of experience in research and clinical practice with children with autism and their families. She is the chair of the technology special interest group for the Association for Behavior Analysis. Questions? Customer Service: |
Q: Put in simple terms, what is "generalization" and why is it so important?
A: Generalization is when a learned skill is applied to other settings, materials, or people. It is the most critical outcome of any intervention. If the skill does not generalize, it is an emerging skill (or maybe even a memorized rote response); until it generalizes, it cannot be considered a mastered skill. Q: Can you provide an example of a scenario in which generalization has occurred successfully and the same scenario where it has not? A: Imagine a 2 year-old boy with autism in an intensive ABA early intervention program. He receives 30 hours a week of Discrete Trial Training and has "mastered" 25 skills in his imitation program and 25 skills in his receptive vocabulary program. He transfers over to a new therapist, who specializes in Pivotal Response Training (PRT), a naturalistic type of ABA. The PRT therapist decides to review his list of "mastered" skills in the first several sessions and finds that the child cannot demonstrate any of the imitation skills during PRT, but that he can demonstrate the vocabulary skills from his "mastered" list. This shows that the child has generalized his vocabulary skills to a more naturalistic situation, but that he has not generalized his imitation skills. Q: In Real Life, Real Progress, you highlight the contrast between the "train and hope" approach to generalization versus specific planning for generalization. Can you elaborate? A: "Train and hope" is what is typically done in treatment, although there are some excellent programs out there that go way beyond this approach. In "train and hope", the therapist teaches the child with whatever approach they are using without conducting a plan for how these skills might generalize to the natural environment. For instance, let's say you buy a computer-assisted treatment program for your child and the program teaches a variety of vocabulary items. You look at the report and notice that your child has learned more than 100 vocabulary words and you are very excited about her progress. Then, you learn that the child has not generalized any of these vocabulary words off the computer. This is likely due to the fact that the computer program you used implemented the "train and hope" technique. It taught vocabulary words using the same picture of that word over and over again. This may have trained the child to respond to that particular image, which the makers of the program hoped would generalize. Now imagine a computer program that used 15 different images including clipart, drawings, and photos to teach the same vocabulary word—this shows some planning for generalization. It is even better if the program includes off-computer activities to work on the vocabulary in the natural environment. Q: Can you provide an illustration of one educational practice someone could incorporate into their planning to increase generalization? A: Imagine a teenage girl, Megan, who is responding very well to Social Stories to teach her to interact more appropriately with her peers. This week, you are working on teaching her to dress like the other girls at school. You put together an excellent Social Story about how a lot of the girls wear hoodie sweatshirts. Your book shows pictures of various girls with different examples of hoodies and talks about how the other girls positively respond to these types of clothing. Megan starts wearing hoodies to school, but you don't want her to wear one every single day, so you then create a Social Story about girls wearing band t-shirts or hoodies. Over time, you gradually add different examples and Megan learns to wear different styles of clothing that are similar to her peers. Q: How important is it to enlist the help of others in a child's day in promoting generalization? What role can families play? A: It is absolutely essential to enlist the help of anyone who frequently spends time with the child to ensure generalization across settings and across people. Families can play many roles; they can do naturalistic activities with their child that support what the child is learning at school or in therapy. They can ask their service providers about how the program targets generalization and what they can do to help work on the skills at home and out in the community. Q: Think for a minute about the current most widely used interventions with children with autism ... if you could make one sweeping change that would result in more effective generalization, what would it be? A: Don't focus only on quantity (number of skills mastered), but also on quality (generalization of skills to the natural environment). All interventions should plan for and measure generalization, regardless of the teaching philosophy. For more insight on successful generalization, see Dr. Whalen's new book Real Life, Real Progress for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders. |
|
