Training Mentally Retarded Adults to Make Emergency Telephone Calls

Abstract

Training mentally retarded persons to make emergency telephone calls is an important community survival skill. A task analysis for making telephone calls to three emergency parties (fire, police, and doctor) was performed and its content validity established. A series of four antecedent conditions, ordered from less to more direct assistance, was used to teach all component responses to three retarded adults. A multiple baseline across subjects was used to demonstrate experimental control. Additionally, the multiple baseline across responses strategy was incorporated to examine for generalization across the three response types. During training, subjects' skill acquisition was gradual but positively accelerated. When the training criterion was met for the first emergency party called, stimulus generalization occurred to the other emergency persons not yet trained. A one-to two-week postcheck showed excellent maintenance of the skill.