Teaching time telling and examining the relative effects of rate-building and rate-controlled practice on the retention and generalization of the time cues

Abstract

The present study aimed at replicating some of the procedures used in the existing empirical research on teaching time telling in a population which has not previously been used, i.e., adults with mild intellectual disabilities. The first part aimed to train three adults with mild intellectual disability and with minimal skills to tell the time to the nearest 5 min interval. The target skill was trained in 12 phases and each phase consisted of acquisition training, discrimination training and review training. A multiple-probe design was used over phases. The results showed that the procedures used in the training were effective in establishing time telling with these intellectually disabled adults. The training had brought about 55 to 67 percent improvements in the time telling skills of all three participants and the target behaviour was acquired by all the participants in 48 to 65 days, with at least 30 min of training each day. The common discrimination errors encountered, the general effectiveness of the training program, the application and the social relevance of the trained skill are discussed. The second part of this study aimed at comparing the relative effects of “fast practice”, “slow practice” and “no practice” on the retention and generalization of the time telling skills, when amount of practice and reinforcement was controlled across conditions. An Alternating Treatments, repeated measure, within-subjects design was used. The results indicated that, while periods without practicing led to the deterioration in the accuracy of skill, retention or generalization of the skill was not enhanced by rate-building to a fluency performance standard over the same amount of rate-controlled practice. Limitations of the study to provide firm conclusions are discussed.