A comprasion of the effectiveness and efficiency of constant-time delay and simultaneous prompting procedures on teaching daily life skills to students with mental retardation

This study was designed to determine whether simultaneous or constant-time delay prompting procedures is effective in teaching daily life skills(changing hygienic peds and ironing T-shirts) to students with mental retardation (in terms of the number of trainings, the number of the incorrect behaviors of the child and total training process until meeting the criterion), whether the skills are maintained 7, 14, 21 days after the training is completed and whether the skills are generalized to different environments, people and tools/materials. Besides, opinions of the families and teachers are employed in order to determine the efficiency and functionality of the skills and to determine the appropriateness and functionality of the procedures used during the process of training of the skills. ?Adopted Alternating Treatment Design? across the single subject experimental designs is used in the research.While students? levels at ironing T-shirts and changing hygienic peds compose the dependent variable the training performed with constant-time delay and simultaneous prompting procedures in teaching daily life skills composes the independent variable of the study. Baselines of the subjects are determined with single chance procedure and training sessions are designed so as to examine the effect of the independent variable on the dependent variable. Training sessions are performed with alternating treatment during the process of teaching ironing T-shirts and changing hygienic peds. Students? development table prepared appropriately according to the prompting procedures. In order to find out the students daily life and personal care requirements, their studying behaviors, their language and imitation levels and effective reinforcements, a teacher interview form is used. Prerequisite skills form is employed so as to explore whether the subjects have essential prerequisite skills about changing hygienic peds and ironing T-shirts. Besides, prerequisite skills form is applied to determine the students? daily life skill levels. Students? developments during the training with constant-time delay and simultaneous prompting procedures are written down with the help of development record tables. With the aim of determining the reliability of data gathering during follow-up sessions (baseline, generalization, continuity) and reliability of application of training performed with constant-time delay and simultaneous prompting procedures by the instructor, a procedural reliability form is used. A social reliability form is prepared and employed in order to determine the importance and functionality of materials and required skills used in the training performed with constant-time delay and simultaneous prompting procedure and appropriateness and functionality of the procedures utilized during the process of acquiring the skills.The data gathered during the study are analyzed graphically and interpreted characteristically.According to the results of the study, both of the prompting procedures are efficient in teaching daily life skills to the students with mental retardation. In terms of the total process of training until meeting the criterion constant-time delay prompting procedures more productive than the simultaneous prompting procedure. In terms of the total number of the training and incorrect behaviors until meeting the criterion, simultaneous prompting procedure is more productive than the constant-time delay prompting procedure. Moreover, there is no difference in terms of the maintenance of the daily life skills 7, 14, 21 days after the training and the generalization of the skills to different environments, people, and tools/materials.