THE EFFECTS OF ERRORLESS LEARNING AND
BACKWARD CHAINING ON THE ACQUISITION OF
INTERNET SKILLS IN ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
JARED JEROME, ERIC P. FRANTINO, AND PETER STURMEY
QUEENS COLLEGE AND THE GRADUATE CENTER OF THE CITY
UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK
An important area in the learning and development of individuals with disabilities is the
acquisition of independent, age-appropriate leisure skills. Three adults with autism and mental
retardation were taught to access specific Internet sites using backward chaining and most-toleast intrusive prompting. The number of independent steps completed in the task analysis
increased following training.
DESCRIPTORS: autism, computer use, leisure skills
_______________________________________________________________________________
Age-appropriate leisure skills are important
and valued for all individuals, and the use of
personal computers has become an important
form of leisure activity for many, including
those with developmental disabilities. Several
prior investigations have demonstrated effective
methods for training leisure skills to individuals
with developmental disabilities. For example,
Luyben, Funk, Morgan, Clark, and Delulio
(1986) trained 3 adults with mild mental
retardation a side-of-the-foot soccer pass using
chaining and prompting. The pass was analyzed
into nine steps that were taught sequentially
through forward chaining with a varying degree
of prompts as training progressed. At first,
verbal instruction plus a physical prompt were
used. These were succeeded by imitative
prompts, gestural prompts, and finally, verbal
prompts alone. Eventually the target behavior of
side passing the soccer ball was learned without
prompts for all participants.
Frank, Wacker, Berg, and McMahon (1985)
taught 5 individuals with mental retardation to
perform two computer tasks. There were 32 steps
required to initiate and terminate a spelling
program and 23 steps required to initiate and
terminate a clock program on the computer. Both
skills were evaluated in a combined multiple
baseline (across students) and sequential withdrawal design. After the first two training sessions
in which picture prompts were used, the
percentage of correct steps completed increased
across sessions for each participant. When the
picture prompts were removed in the second
baseline condition, however, the percentage of
correct steps decreased. The posttest and followup procedures showed a return to the high
percentages found after the first two training
sessions with picture prompts. Thus, Frank et al.
demonstrated that picture prompts were very
effective in the training of computer skills to
individuals with developmental disabilities.
Although these studies show that adults with
developmental disabilities can learn both leisure
and computer skills using prompting, forward
and backward chaining, and differential reinforcement, no previous research has shown that adults
with developmental disabilities can be taught to
use the Internet to access age-appropriate adult
leisure activities. Thus, the aim of the current
study was to teach adults with autism and mental
retardation to access age-appropriate Web sites on
the Internet using a combined errorless learning
and backward chaining procedure.
METHOD
Participants and Settings
Chris and Mark were 32-year-old and 24-yearold men, respectively, and both had been
Requests for reprints should be sent to Jared Jerome,
67-41 Burns St. Apt. L7, Forest Hills, New York 11375.
doi: 10.1901/jaba.2007.41-06
JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2007, 40, 185–189 NUMBER 1 (SPRING 2007)
185
diagnosed with autism and mild mental retardation. Ethan was a 25-year-old man who had
been diagnosed with mild mental retardation and
deafness. Each man was chosen to be a participant
because, when asked ‘‘Do you want to play on the
computer?’’ he got up and walked to the
computer and sat next to it within 10 s on five
consecutive trials, and if he turned on the power
button on either the computer or the monitor on
five consecutive trials when prompted.
All sessions were conducted in a day-habilitation center for adults with mental retardation
and autism. The sessions took place either in
the participant’s classroom or in a separate
classroom with a different computer. Across all
sessions, the participant was seated in a chair
approximately 1 m away from and facing the
computer.
Response Measurement and Reliability
Across all conditions, data were collected on
the number of independent tasks completed.
The frequency of steps completed per session
was based on a 13-step task analysis (described
below), and the data were analyzed based on the
number of steps completed independently
relative to the total number of steps. Interobserver agreement was assessed on 53% of all
sessions by having a second observer simultaneously but independently collect data on the
completion of each step of the task analysis. An
agreement was defined as both observers
marking a check when a step of the task analysis
was performed or marking an X when a step
was not performed. Agreement was calculated
by dividing the number of steps with agreements by the number of steps with agreements
plus the number of steps with disagreements
multiplied by 100%. Agreement averaged
100% for task completion throughout baseline
and postteaching.
Procedure
The following 13-step task analysis was
conducted to develop the requisite skills
necessary to access a specific Web site:
1. Press the computer power button.
2. Press the monitor power button.
3. Place hand on the mouse.
4. Move the cursor with the mouse until it
points to the Internet ExplorerH icon.
5. Double clickthe Internet ExplorerH
icon.
6. Move the cursor with the mouse to the
GoogleH search box.
7. Left clickin the box.
8. Type in the search topic of interest.
9. Place hand backon mouse.
10. Move cursor to the box labeled ‘‘search.’’
11. Single clickthe box.
12. Move the cursor with the mouse down to
the Web site of choice.
13. Single clickthe Web site of choice.
Across all steps, clicking was defined as
pushing down with the right index finger on
the front part of the mouse.
Prior to each day’s sessions, a stimulus
preference assessment (based on DeLeon &
Iwata, 1996) was conducted to determine the
items to be presented as reinforcers during the
teaching sessions. For all participants, small
edible items (e.g., jelly beans) were used as
reinforcers.
Preferred online games or Web sites for each
participant were determined before baseline by
asking program staff what topics interested the
participants and then observing the participants
engage in the game or Web site for a minimum
of 5 min when the Web sites had been accessed
by the experimenters. Staff informed the
experimenters that the participants often used
those Web sites, but the staff had to access the
Web sites for them. To gain access to the
preferred Internet activity, participants needed
to double click the link to the Web site from
a search engine (i.e., the GoogleH homepage;
www.google.com). Chris and Ethan worked to
access an online pinball game, and Mark
worked to access a Web site that played music
videos (specific links are available from the first
author).
186 JARED JEROME et al.
Baseline. During baseline, each session began
with the experimenter saying, ‘‘[name], do you
want to play on the computer?’’ After the
participant sat down, the experimenter stood
1 m behind the participant. The experimenter
said nothing else and did not deliver any other
prompts during the baseline condition. When
the participant either looked away from the
computer or did not engage in the initial step or
any subsequent step of the task for 2 min, the
trial was terminated and the experimenter
accessed the target online game or Web site
and allowed the participant to interact with the
online game or Web site for 5 min. All baseline
sessions lasted between 2 and 5 min, depending
on the participant’s behavior.
Teaching. In the teaching condition, the
experimenter stood 1 m behind the seated
participant throughout the session. When each
teaching session began, however, the initial 12
steps of the task analysis were complete such
that the participant was only required to click
on the link for their preferred internet activity
present on the GoogleH homepage. The
experimenter then said, ‘‘[name], begin playing
on the computer.’’ If the participant correctly
completed this step, access to the preferred
internet activity was delivered for 5 min.
If the participant did not click the mouse after
3 s, an errorless learning procedure was used to
click the GoogleH link. A most-to-least intrusive
prompting procedure (i.e., hand-over-hand
guidance, followed by hand-over-wrist guidance, then hand-over-elbow guidance, and
finally hand-over-shoulder guidance) was used
until all prompts were faded and the participant
independently clicked on the GoogleH link.
Experimenters progressed to a less intrusive
prompt after the participant performed the task
with the previous prompt on two consecutive
trials. Thus, the participants were not given the
opportunity to perform an incorrect task on the
computer. With the exception of the most-toleast intrusive prompting procedure, no other
verbal prompts were delivered.
The prompting procedure continued until
the participant independently completed each
of the 13 task-analysis steps two times consecutively. After mastery of each step, training on
the previous step was added. For example, once
the participant independently completed the
13th step on two consecutive trials, the
prompting procedure was applied to the 12th
step and so on, based on a backward chaining
procedure. When all 13 steps were completed
independently for three consecutive sessions,
teaching was considered to be completed.
Throughout the teaching condition, the
experimenters delivered edible items after the
participant completed each step of the task
analysis, for both prompted and independent
task completion. Edible items were delivered
as a form of immediate reinforcement to
maintain behavior in the absence of the
delayed reinforcement provided by accessing
the Internet activity. In addition, the participant
received 5-min access to the preferred
Internet activity after completion of the final
step in the task analysis, regardless of whether
completion of that step was prompted or
occurred independently. Each teaching session
lasted for a maximum of 40 min based on the
maximum time available on the participants’
schedules.
Postteaching. Postteaching sessions were conducted in an identical manner to the baseline
condition; that is, edible reinforcers and
prompts were not delivered. The only difference
was if the participants did not complete the 13-
step chain, the session was terminated without
access to the Web site. Participants were
required to progress from one step to the next
within the same 2-min time frame that existed
during baseline.
Generalization probes. Beginning in the postteaching phase, a second computer became
available in a separate classroom, located
approximately 8 m from the computer used
during baseline. The generalization computer
and monitor were similar to the training
INTERNET SKILL DEVELOPMENT 187
Figure 1. Number of steps of task analysis completed for 3 participants across all trials.
188 JARED JEROME et al.
computer in size and general layout (e.g., power
button, mouse type). The same 13-step task
analysis allowed access to the Web site of
choice, and the same procedure as baseline and
postteaching was used. Generalization probes
were conducted on this second computer on
52%, 58%, and 38% of postteaching sessions
for Chris, Mark, and Ethan, respectively.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results are shown in Figure 1. Chris had
a range of one to four steps completed in
baseline. He met criterion for all 13 steps in one
40-min teaching session. In postteaching, he
completed all 13 steps of the task analysis
during every session. Mark completed zero to
one steps in baseline. He met criterion after five
40-min teaching sessions. In postteaching, he
completed 1 to 13 steps, and he completed all
13 steps in 10 of 12 sessions. Ethan completed
zero to five steps in baseline. He met criterion in
one 40-min teaching session. In postteaching,
he completed all 13 steps in every session. Thus,
the number of steps completed independently
increased after teaching for each participant. In
addition, participants’ skills generalized to
a novel computer.
Previous research has demonstrated the use of
task analyses and errorless learning to teach
a variety of nonleisure computer skills and other
leisure activities. The present study combined
the efforts of this previous research by teaching
leisure skills on the computer to adults with
developmental disabilities. A limitation of the
present study was that it taught access to only
two Web sites, an online game and a music
Web site that had been determined to be
preferred prior to the study. Future research
should extend this method to include choice
among a variety of available Web sites, because
choosing among multiple activities may result
in higher levels of task engagement (Tiger,
Hanley, & Hernandez, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers). A second
limitation to the study was that only one
generalization computer was used and was used
only during postteaching and not during
baseline. Future research should evaluate stimulus generalization across different computers
and locations as well as response generalization,
such as to other Internet skills. Also, during the
baseline condition participants were given only
the following discriminative stimulus: ‘‘[Name],
do you want to play on the computer?’’ It is
possible that if participants were given more
detailed instructions, they would have been able
to perform more task-analysis steps. Likewise, it
is possible that the delivery of edible reinforcers
in the teaching condition may have resulted in
increased task completion relative to baseline.
Finally, although the participants completed the
13-step chain during the postteaching and
generalization conditions without any prompting, it was not determined whether they learned
to approach a computer independently to access
a Web site of choice. Future research should
observe whether participants would independently initiate trained leisure skills while not
under the control of a specific discriminative
stimulus.
REFERENCES
DeLeon, I. G., & Iwata, B. A. (1996). Evaluation of
a multiple-stimulus presentation format for assessing
reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 29, 519–532.
Frank, A. R., Wacker, D. P., Berg, W. K., & McMahon,
C. M. (1985). Teaching selected microcomputer skills
to retarded students via picture prompts. Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, 18, 179–185.
Luyben, P. D., Funk, D. M., Morgan, J. K., Clark, K. A.,
& Delulio, D. W. (1986). Team sports for the
severely retarded: Training a side-of-the-foot soccer
pass using a maximum-to-minimum prompt reduction strategy. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 19,
431–436.
Tiger, J. H., Hanley, G. P., & Hernandez, E. (2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers). An
evaluation of the value of choice with preschool
children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 39,
1–16.
Received March 16, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers
Final acceptance September 12, 2006 – Write a paper; Professional research paper writing service – Best essay writers
Action Editor, Henry Roane
INTERNET SKILL DEVELOPMENT 189
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THE EFFECTS OF ERRORLESS LEARNING AND BACKWARD CHAINING ON INTERNET SKILL ACQUISITION IN ADULTS WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES
JARED JEROME, ERIC P. FRANTINO, AND PETER STURMEY QUEENS COLLEGE AND THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK GRADUATE CENTER
An important area in the learning and development of individuals with disabilities is the acquisition of independent, age-appropriate leisure skills. Three adults with autism and mental retardation were taught to access specific Internet sites using backward chaining and most-toleast intrusive prompting. The number of independent steps completed in the task analysis increased following training.
DESCRIPTORS: autism, computer use, leisure skills
_______________________________________________________________________________
Age-appropriate leisure skills are important and valued for all individuals, and the use of personal computers has become an important form of leisure activity
