Teaching Vegetable Names to Children with Down Syndrome: A Small Group Study*

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Teaching Vegetable Names to Children with Down
SyndromeA Small Group Study

• Sema BATU
• Anadolu University
• Research Institute for the Handicapped
• E-mail esbatu_at_anadolu.edu.tr
• The presentation will be published in Eurasian
  Journal of Educational Research, 25, 2006.

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• Group instruction is getting more and more
  important
• More studies should focus on group arrangements
  and effective teaching techniques

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• Direct instruction is used by teachers usually by
  dividing the skills or components into small
  steps.
• It also requires the teacher to reduce the
  prompts from the most to the least until the
  student performs the acquired skills
  independently.

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Related Studies

• Schloss, Alper, Young, Arnold-Reid, Aylward and
  Dudenhoeffer (1995) examined the effectiveness of
  a direct instruction procedure involving modeling
  and guided practice on the acquisition of
  functional sight words in 11 format. Three
  participants with mental retardation and behavior
  disorders took place in the study.

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Related Studies (continued)

• Kircaali-Iftar, Birkan, and Uysal (1998) examined
  the effects of structural and natural language
  use during direct instruction in teaching colors
  and shapes to children with moderate mental
  retardation in 11 format.

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Related Studies (continued)

• Losardo and Bricker (1994) compared the
  effectiveness of activity-based intervention and
  direct instruction on teaching object names to
  preschool children with developmental
  disabilities in group settings.

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Purpose

• The purpose of the present study was to examine
• (1) if direct instruction was effective in
  teaching vegetable names in a group setting to
  pre-school children with down syndrome,
• (2) if the participants would maintain the
  skills they learned four and five weeks after the
  intervention completed,

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Purpose (continued)

• (3) if the participants would generalize the
  skills they learned across trainers, settings and
  materials,
• (4) the opinions of the parents of the
  participants about the importance of the study.

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MethodParticipants

• Prerequisite skills
• (a) to keep his/her attention on an activity for
  at least 10 minutes,
• (b) to follow basic instructions given by the
  trainer,
• (c) to be able to name one worded objects, and
• (d) to have the skills needed to take part in a
  small group instruction environment.

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Participants (continued)

• Asli was six and Seda was four years old. They
  had limited verbal language use. The criterion
  for completing the training sessions of each set
  for Asli and Seda was 90-100 correct responses.
• Ahmet was six years old. He had very limited
  verbal language skills. The criterion for
  completing the training sessions of each set for
  Ahmet was 75-80 correct responses.

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Materials

• Fifteen pictures were used to teach the names of
  the vegetables. The pictures were stuck on
  teaching tables of 20 cm X 40 cm pasteboards.
• For generalization across materials, real
  vegetables were used.
• Chocolate, mandarin and baby doll were used as
  reinforcers .
• A stopwatch and a video camera were used.

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Table 1. Teaching Sets

• 1st Teaching set 2nd Teaching set 3rd Teaching
  set
• Onion Mushroom Eggplant
• Green peas Leek Corn
• Tomatoes Cabbage Potatoes
• Spinach Radish Cucumber
• Pumpkin Carrot Pepper

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Trainer, Observer and Data Collector

• The trainer was an assistant professor.
• The generalization trainer was an assistant
  professor in the field of special education.
• The observer was a doctoral student.
• The data collector was a senior student in the
  department of special education.

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Procedure

• Experimental procedure of the study consisted of
  full probe, training, maintenance, and
  generalization sessions.

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Full probe sessions

• The first full probe session was conducted before
  the first training session for collecting the
  baseline data of the participants.
• Other full probe sessions were conducted after
  the participants met the criterion during
  training sessions.
• Full probe sessions were conducted in a one to
  one environment.
• During all full probe sessions 30 trials were
  conducted.
• During all probe sessions, data collector was
  present with the trainer in order to collect data
  simultaneously.

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Full probe sessions were conducted with the
following order

• placing the materials on the desk,
• presenting an attentional que (i.e., Are you
  ready to work with me?),
• presenting the task direction (i.e., Tell me
  what is the name of this vegetable?),
• waiting the 5s interval for the participants
  response,
• rewarding the correct response orally, or
• ignoring the incorrect response.
• The second trial was started five seconds after
  finishing the first trial.

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Direct instruction training sessions

• (a) establishing the need,
• (b) modeling the skill,
• (c) role playing the skill,
• (d) feedback, and
• (e) generalization and transfer.

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Maintenance sessions

• Maintenance sessions were conducted four and five
  weeks after the last full probe session was
  conducted with each participant.
• Maintenance sessions were conducted the same as
  the full probe sessions.
• During maintenance sessions, participants were
  reinforced with tangible reinforcers (i.e.
  mandarins, etc.) for their cooperation and
  attention.

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Generalization sessions

• Generalization data were collected across
  materials, settings and trainers.
• All generalization data were examined via a pre-
  and post-test design.
• Pre-test sessions were conducted after the first
  full probe session.
• Post-test sessions were conducted after each
  participant met the criterion.

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• Generalization across materials data were
  collected with real vegetables.
• Generalization across settings data were
  collected in a market in the campus.
• Generalization across trainers data were
  collected with an assistant professor in the area
  of special education.

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Experimental design

• A multiple probe design across behaviors was used
  to examine the effectiveness of direct
  instruction in teaching vegetable names to a
  small group of pre-school children with Down
  syndrome.

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Reliability

• For the reliability data, two kinds of
  reliability data were collected inter observer
  reliability and procedural reliability.
• 30 of all probe, training, maintenance and
  generalization sessions were examined for the
  reliability data.

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Interobserver Reliability Data

• Full Pr. Tr. M G
• Asli 98 92 80 100
• Seda 94 87 87 100
• Ahmet 98 88 90 97

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Procedural Reliability Data

• Results showed that the trainer implemented the
  planned steps during all sessions with 99
  (range 98-100) accuracy for all the
  participants (range 98-100) during all sessions.

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Social Validity

• A six item questionnaire was prepared
• (1) Do you think it is important for your child
  to learn vegetable names?,
• (2) In which ways do you think that the study was
  important?,
• (3) Do you think there is an advantage of the
  study being conducted in group setting? If yes,
  what are these?,
• (4) Are there any parts that you didnt like
  about the study? If yes, what are these?,

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• (5) Are there any differences after the study was
  completed in your child? If yes, what are these?,
  and
• (6) If a similar study was to be conducted with
  your child, would you be willing for that?

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Results Instructional Data

• The results of the present study revealed that
  direct instruction was
• effective in teaching vegetable names to a small
  group of pre-school children with Down syndrome
• effective for generalization of the skills taught
  during the study.
• All of the participants met the criterion of the
  study.

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Maintenance and Generalization Data

• Maintenance data were collected four and five
  weeks after the intervention was completed.
• It can be seen on the figures that the
  participants maintained the skills they learned
  very successfully both on the fourth and the
  fifth weeks.

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Generalization Data
Gener. Ac. Trainers Gener. Ac. Trainers Gener. Ac. Materials Gener. Ac. Materials Gener. Ac. Settings Gener. Ac. Settings
Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test Pre-test Post-test
Asli 40 100 30 87 40 100
Seda 34 100 40 87 33 100
Ahmet 1 94 13 73 20 100
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Social Validity Data

• The answers from the mothers of the participants
  were very positive. Mothers mentioned that
• they were very happy that their children learned
  the names of different vegetables,
• group arrangement was an advantage of the study
  for their children,
• they would give permission for their childrens
  taking part in a similar study in the future.

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Discussion

• The findings of the study were consistent with
  some other research pointing that direct
  instruction was an effective way of teaching
  various skills to individuals with developmental
  disabilities.
• The criterion for each subject was determined
  individually. Since the general performance of
  Ahmet was below the other participants during the
  activities in the class, the criterion was
  determined depending on his performance. During
  the training sessions, Ahmet met his own
  criterion but as a good point to be mentioned,
  during maintenance sessions he performed 100
  correct responses for all teaching sets.

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Recommendations

• It can be suggested to compare the effectiveness
  and efficiency of direct instruction with another
  teaching procedure (e.g., errorless teaching
  procedures).
• The study can be replicated with individuals with
  other developmental disabilities (e.g., autism).

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References

• Gast, D.L. (1990). Use of constant time delay in
  small group instruction A study of observational
  and incidental learning. Journal of Special
  Education, 23(4), 369-386.
• Kircaali-Iftar, G., Birkan, B., Uysal, A.
  (1998). Comparing the effects of structural and
  natural language use during direct instruction
  with children with mental retardation. Education
  and Training in Mental Retardation and
  Developmental Disabilities, 33(4), 375-385.
• Kircaali-Iftar, G., Tekin, E. (1997). Tek
  denekli arastirma yontemleri (Single subject
  research methods). Ankara, Turkey Turk
  Psikologlar Dernegi Yayinlari.
• Losardo, A. Bricker, D. (1994). Activity-based
  intervention and direct instruction A comparison
  study. American Journal of Mental Retardation,
  98(6), 744-765.

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• Mills, P.E., Cole, K.N., Jenkins, J.R., Dale,
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• Schloss, J., Alper, S., Young, H., Arnold-Reid,
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