Limited Evidence Of Effectiveness Research Articles

The Effectiveness of Gentle Teaching

This paper critically examines the evidence for the effectiveness of gentle teaching. In the last five years the literature in the field of gentle teaching has been dominated by case studies pointing to the success of gentle teaching and by experimental research which failed to show such an effect. More recently there have been criticisms of some of the early experimental evaluations and some limited evidence for effectiveness under controlled conditions. It seems that in some circumstances gentle teaching can be successful. Future research must address itself towards the analysis of these circumstances rather than global and relatively meaningless questions regarding overall effectiveness.

Using constant time delay to teach self-feeding to young students with severe/profound handicaps: Evidence of limited effectiveness

This paper describes an investigation to determine the effectiveness of a constant time-delay procedure used in a total task format to teach chained self-feeding skills to two preschool children with severe handicaps. Training was conducted during snacktime using a 3-sec delay interval with a controlling prompt of physical guidance. Both children learned spoon use; in addition, one child learned cup use. These behaviours maintained over time. Although there was not adequate time to teach additional behaviors to establish experimental control, results indicate that the constant time-delay procedure merits further investigation as an effective means of teaching self-feeding tasks.