Training adolescents with severe handicaps to set up job tasks independently using picture prompts

Three adolescents functioning within the moderate to severe range of mental retardation were taught to use picture prompts to guide their performance on two vocational sequencing tasks. Evaluation of the effects of picture prompts was conducted within a multiple baseline (across subjects and tasks) with reversal design. Baseline was conducted on two tasks, valve assembly with 18 parts, and packaging with 20 parts. During baseline, students were to sequence a specified number of each part across three work stations. Following baseline, students were taught to use picture prompts to guide their performance on one of the tasks. All students completed the training task with at least 96% accuracy with the picture prompts, and generalized their performance with equal accuracy to the untrained task. When picture prompts were removed (reversal to baseline), the performance of all students decreased substantially, indicating that the pictures were controlling their performance. When the pictures were again available to guide behavior, the performance of all three adolescents returned to posttraining levels of accuracy.