Haavik, Sarah F.2025-01-172025-01-171982-05-31https://hdl.handle.net/1808/35802Ph.D. University of Kansas, Human Development and Family Life 1982A strategy involving manipulating the reinforcement contingencies in the training and generalization settings was used to facilitate school-to-home generalization of language responses. Four developmentally disabled preschool children were trained in a one-to-one school setting to point to two sets of pictures in multiple baseline fashion. Initial generalization to a second trainer in school and the mother at home was documented in both no-reinforcement and interspersed reinforcement probe conditions (in which a nonprobe item was reinforced on a VR-3 schedule). High levels of correct responding with the second trainer at school were maintained in both the no-reinforcement and interspersed reinforcement conditions, regardless of the sequence of conditions. The reversal design showed that for three of the four children, interspersed reinforcement was necessary to maintain high levels of correct responding at home; while deterioration, increased variability and in some instances extinction occurred when the no-reinforcement condition was in effect in the home setting. The results are discussed in relation to the applied literature on generalization and maintenance.This item is protected by copyright and unless otherwise specified the copyright of this dissertation is held by the author.Children with mental disabilities --EducationLanguage artsHome and schoolReinforcement (Psychology)DissertationopenAccess