The Use of Verbal Self-Instruction Training to Promote Indirect Generalization

Abstract

A battery of tests was administered to forty-eight institutionalized moderately and severely intellectually disabled men and twenty non-institutionalized moderately disabled men and women, providing data on language, conceptual tempo and manual dexterity. The groups were then randomly subdivided with half receiving training in the cognitive strategy of verbal self- instruction and the others being trained in the more traditional procedure of modelling and imitation. The primary tasks taught through these methods were life skills of high ecological validity for these subjects (i.e vacuuming, sandwich making and collating). The battery of tests was administered again following training to provide data relating to changes in these measures which should be described as indirect since no specific training was directed towards them. For both groups of subjects it was found that verbal self-instruction training resulted in significantly greater improvement on several of the measures. These changes were identifie...