William R. Sharpton

Facilitating Task Acquisition through the Use of a Self-Operated Auditory Prompting System

This study investigated effects of a self-operated auditory prompting system, utilizing a Walkman-type cassette player, on the acquisition and maintenance of functional tasks by adolescents with severe handicaps. A multiple baseline design across tasks was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of the procedure for meal preparation, washing machine operation, and a vocational assembly task. Results indicated that each of the four participants successfully learned and maintained performance of each task.

Who's Doing the Pointing? Investigating Facilitated Communication in a Classroom Setting with Students with Autism

The first author, a certified speech-language pathologist (SLP), served as the facilitator for two students with autism to assess pointing control during facilitated communication. The teacher instructed the students during typical classroom activities, and two classroom assistants collected data. We used a counterbalanced alternating treatments design with the SLP/facilitator being either blind or sighted. She wore sunglasses throughout the investigation with a cardboard cutout inserted for the blind condition. The alternating treatments data reveal that the students responded more accurately when the SLP/facilitator could see in spite of the fact that she did not think she was influencing their responding and did not intentionally do so.

Prompting Strategies That Promote Student Self-Management

Students who perform tasks competently and independently tend to exhibit fewer instances of inappropriate behavior than those who have difficulty with them (Smith, 1985). Students with severe handicaps can perfonn more competently when teachers incorporate verbal and/or physical prompts into their instruction. However, competence attained this way tends to decrease when the teacher is not present to deliver the prompts. When this occurs, an alternative to teacher prompting must be implemented to maintain student perfonnance. This is challenging, especially in community settings. One way to reduce dependence on teachers is to teach students to use self-operated prompting strategies. This type of self-management fosters student independence and improves behavior in community environments.

The Measurement of Family Perspectives on Extended School Year Practices with Students in Special Education.

Although the provision of services beyond the traditional 180-day school year to students with disabilities-or extended school year (ESY) programs-has become a major national issue, there is a paucity of investigations designed to measure family perspectives on what ESY practices have been experienced and subsequently viewed as efficacious. The purpose of this study was to obtain validity and reliability indexes for scores on a 12-item scale developed as a result of a Louisiana consent decree that mandated the development and monitoring of guidelines for the provision of ESY services. Principal components analysis was conducted on the responses of 128 families that contained a member potentially eligible for ESY services. Results indicated that a two-component model was both valid and interpretable. Cronbachs alphas for total scale scores and the two components indicated acceptable internal consistency reliability levels.