Ms. Rao knew this skill was important for George in the general education environment, and wanted George to demonstrate this skill in his gym, art, and math classes. Because Ms. Rao was teaching George to demonstrate a behavior in different settings, she was focusing on setting generalization. She operationally defined a single objective:

• When there is a change in routine / expectations in class, George will imitate the actions of the majority of his classmates on 4/5 opportunities per class.

• Instructional Setting: Small Group
• Instructional Method: Role Play

• Generalization Tactic: Train others to prompt and reinforce
• Support Strategy: Peer coaching, reinforcement

Ms. Rao’s Lesson on “Adjusting Behavior in Response to Social Context”

Preparing the Role Play

Ms. Rao decided that for these lessons, she would play the role of the teacher to emulate the general education classroom environment. Each role play included a brief description of the setting and an action for George’s peers to engage in (e.g., sitting on the floor, lining up, standing in a circle). In some role plays, all five peers would engage in the target behavior. In others, only four peers would engage in the target behavior and one peer would do something else. This would help George learn to imitate the majority of peers in the general education setting and ignore the minority of peers who may not be following directions or adjusting to changes in routines.

Recruiting Support from Peers

Prior to the lesson, Ms. Rao met with the peers to explain the purpose of the activity and train them to be peer coaches. She told them that George was working on watching his peers to know what to do in new situations. They could help George by reminding him what he was supposed to do during both the role play and during actual classroom activities. For example, if the class was told to sit in a circle to listen to directions in gym class (instead of sitting in their usual spots on the stairs), they could say, “Hey George, come sit by me.” They practiced different potential changes in routines and discussed different ways they could remind George what he was supposed to do. 

Ms. Rao reminded the peers to give George a little time to follow his classmates on his own before reminding him. She told the peers to count to ten when they noticed George was not following his classmates. If George didn’t begin following his classmates within a count of ten, they could prompt him to do so. Together, Ms. Rao and the five peers scripted six different scenarios that might occur in gym, math, or art class.

Conducting the Small Group Lesson

Ms. Rao began the small group role play lesson by stating her expectations for the peers and reminding George what he was supposed to do. They practiced each script two times, and peers took turns playing different roles. Ms. Rao made sure not to prompt George when he didn’t immediately imitate his peers. Instead, she reminded the peers to help George using the strategies they had learned earlier. However, when George imitated the majority of peers, Ms. Rao provided him with reinforcement in the form of a token and specific verbal praise. She told George that his teachers would give him a token when he imitated his peers during changes in routines. When George earned four tokens, he could trade them in for something on his reinforcement menu.

Recruiting Staff Support

After the lesson, Ms. Rao met with George’s art, math, and gym teachers to train them to reinforce George. She told them what George had learned, and she asked them if they could help out by providing George a token when he followed his peers during a change in routine. She explained different situations in which this might occur in each class, and she provided tokens to each teacher.