Programming Resource Room Generalization Using Lucky Charms

Abstract

Eight behavior disordered students participated in a program to promote transfer of training from a resource room to regular classroom settings. The subjects, boys and girls aged 8 to 11, were intermediate level students in an ungraded public elementary school. These students spent a portion of each day in a resource room designed to remediate their academic and social deficits. Prior to intervention all of the students correctly completed over 95% of their reading and mathematics assignments while in the resource room but less than 60% of those assignments while in regular classroom settings. Transfer of training was accomplished by establishing a personalized discriminative stimulus (S^D) within the resource room for each student. These S^Ds, designated "lucky charms," were literally carried by students from the resource room to their regular classrooms. Students correctly completed over 90% of their regular classroom reading and mathematics assignments when they worked in the presence of the lucky charm. A multiple baseline analysis across settings demonstrated a functional relationship between the introduction of the "lucky charms" and academic improvement. The "lucky charm" is suggested as an effective and economicaI strategy to facilitate transfer of training from one setting to another.