Effects of Pairing Manual Signs with Verbal Cues upon the Acquisition of Instruction-Following Behaviors and the Generalization to Expressive Language with Severely Handicapped Students

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to examine whether the acquisition of instruction-following behavior is facilitated by the presentation of manual signs with verbal instructions and whether manual and verbal expressive abilities are acquired as an indirect result of receptive training. Three training conditions were presented in which manual signs were paired with each verbal instruction in a one-to-one correspondence with each word, with only key word elements, or were not presented with the instructions. Results indicate that the number of correctly completed instructions was greater for the conditions in which signs were paired with the verbal instruction than for the control conditions (signs were not presented). The effect of receptive instruction on manual and verbal expressive abilities varied among students.