Ms. Jones wanted Marcus to use the skills he learned in VOISS across different school settings and activities. Marcus needed to ask to join in during free-choice time in his homeroom, during gym class, and before school when students congregated in the cafeteria. Ms. Jones decided this lesson would focus on setting generalization. 

Ms. Jones operationally defined two outcomes that indicated her generalization lessons were effective:

• When peers are engaged in an activity Marcus wants to join, he will wait until there is a break in the activity, gain a peer’s attention, and say, “Can I join?” on 9/10 opportunities.
• When asking a peer to join an activity, Marcus will orient his body toward the group and speak in an appropriate volume on 9/10 opportunities.

Next, Ms. Jones chose a setting for this lesson. Marcus received 90 minutes per week of social skills instruction during a “lunch bunch.” During this time, he received informal instruction on social skills and relationships acquisition with a small group of peers. The lunch bunch included five typically-developing peers.

During the lunch bunch, students finish eating and have about 20 minutes to socialize and play games. They have access to a small courtyard with a basketball hoop.

Ms. Jones decided to use role play to address Marcus’s relationship skills and help him learn how to ask to join in.

• Instructional Setting: Small group
• Instructional Method: Role play

Ms. Jones then identified a generalization tactic known as “embedded opportunities”. Because the activities were naturally reinforcing, she decided to use embedded opportunities instead of Marcus’s token system.

Ms. Jones trained a few of Marcus’s peers to be peer coaches. She explained to them that they should let Marcus join in their activities whenever he demonstrated both of the targeted skills, and ignore Marcus when he did not. All appropriate attempts to join were reinforced (by access to the activity).

Marcus’s paraprofessional, Mr. Park, carried three small visuals on printed cards: an image of appropriate body orientation, the word “Wait,” and the phrase, “Can I join?” He would show these cards to Marcus and provide verbal prompts when necessary. These support strategies (prompting and peer coaching) could be easily faded to reduce adult dependence.

• Generalization Tactic: Train others to prompt and reinforce, embedded opportunities
• Support Strategy: Prompting (verbal and visual), peer coaching, visual supports

Ms. Jones’ Lesson on “Asking to Join In”

Developing the Role Play

Ms. Jones identified three activities Marcus enjoyed: Minecraft, Legos, and basketball. These activities would serve as motivating embedded opportunities for Marcus. She taught peers how to do the role play before they included Marcus in the activity. After his peers mastered the role play skills, Marcus was able to practice with them.

Although role play requires specific roles for players, Ms. Jones simplified her script by creating two primary roles. One person would respond to Marcus’s request to join, and all peers would engage with Marcus in the activity once he successfully joined.

Ms. Jones included all five peers from the lunch bunch in the training. The peers engaged in activities in various groups of three to promote generalization. As she trained them to do the role plays, she played the role of Marcus.

She taught the peers the following:

• She explained that Marcus needed to face the group, wait until a natural break in the activity occurred (e.g., not when the students were in the middle of a conversation), gain one person’s attention (by making eye contact or saying the person’s name), and ask to join at an appropriate volume.
• She modeled an appropriate request to join an activity.
• She then modeled several inappropriate requests (e.g., body turned away, voice too loud / soft) and asked the peers to identify why the requests were inappropriate.
• She explained that the peer to whom Marcus directed his request should invite Marcus to join the activity only when he demonstrated all of the appropriate behaviors.

Ms. Jones asked Marcus’s peers to identify other activities Marcus might want to join. Together, they thought about how the role play might relate to these other activities. Ms. Jones also reached out to other students in Marcus’s classes to see if they would be willing to help Marcus with this practice. Interested peers were taught to engage in these activities when Marcus was around and invite Marcus to join when he asked appropriately.

Ms. Jones explained that sometimes Marcus might still ask to join in unusual or awkward ways. She emphasized that it was okay to tell Marcus to wait for his turn, but important that he was not rejected entirely.

Recruiting Support from the Paraprofessional

Ms. Jones discussed this lesson with Mr. Park. She explained the role plays and how the lunch bunch and other peers were helping Marcus practice the target skills. She showed Mr. Park the visuals that she had developed to support Marcus in the role plays. She suggested that Mr. Park use the visual prompts when he anticipated that Marcus was going to ask to join an activity in an inappropriate way (e.g., while turned away from the group, or before a natural break in the activity). She told him he could also use the visual prompts correctively, following an incorrect attempt to join the activity.