Programming maintenance as a major component of a community-centered preventive effort: Escape from fire

Abstract

The present study investigated maintenance of responding by severely to moderately mentally retarded subjects following behavioral training of socially validated methods of exiting from a burning house. Four subjects in a community living arrangement were taught methods of exiting the house in fire emergency situations via a multiple baseline design across subjects. Training included instructions, modeling, behavioral rehearsal, social and tangible external reinforcement, and self-reinforcement. To facilitate maintenance, all children received (a) isolated followed by simultaneous presentation of situations, and those children who met certain criteria received (b) fading of reinforcement and (c) alteration from external to self-reinforcement. To increase the likelihood of generalization to an actual fire, children were taught in their own home and were presented with simulated cues. Generalization to a second room, a secondary focus, was trained to those children who met designated criteria via fading of reinforcement, self-reinforcement, and training in a third room. The procedure was effective in both training and maintaining emergency exiting skills in the simulated setting. Generalization probe data indicated the need to either program generalization or train children in their own rooms. The results were socially validated through presentation of a questionnaire to firefighters.