Promoting generalization of hand washing with general case instruction

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2022

First Committee Member

Dickson, Chata

Second Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel

Third Committee Member

Peck, Sara

Abstract

"The effects of two methods of training; single exemplar training (SET) and general case instruction (GCI), were compared to evaluate which method is more effective in promoting skill generalization of a 6-step handwashing task. The participant was an adolescent student attending a school for children with autism. In SET there was 1 training trial type which sampled only one set of stimuli when teaching the handwashing skill. In GCI a variety of stimuli were sampled from relevant environments to make up 3 unique training trial types. Baseline probes were conducted prior to training and posttest probes were conducted following training for each training phase. Handwashing was mastered at 100% of task analysis steps correct in both the SET and GCI conditions. On probe trials, successful performance was defined as 83% (5 out of 6 steps) correct for the handwashing task analysis. Generalization was more robust following GCI than SET. Only 2 out of 8 probe contexts yielded successful generalization following SET. GCI yielded successful generalization for 3 out of 5 contexts. This study provides a successful demonstration of GCI to promote skill generalization."

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