Ms. Thomas knew it was important for Jackson to display these skills across environments. She decided this lesson would focus on setting generalization. Jackson needed to identify and display a listening posture at lunch and during class periods. Although informal conversation occurred during lunch, formal conversations often occurred during class periods.

Ms. Thomas operationally defined two outcomes that indicated his generalization lessons were effective:

• When Jackson is talking and the listener is oriented away from him, leaning away, or making infrequent eye contact, Jackson will stop talking about the current topic and ask the listener a question on 9/10 opportunities.
• When someone is talking to Jackson, Jackson will face the speaker and make intermittent eye contact during 9/10 conversations.

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

Ms. Thomas then determined a generalization tactic and support strategy that would help reinforce this skill. She decided to train Jackson’s paraprofessional, Mr. McBride, to prompt and reinforce the defined skills. This paired well with the support strategies, prompting and reinforcement. Mr. McBride would use gestures to prompt Jackson and tokens to reinforce the appropriate behaviors.

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

Ms. Thomas’ Lesson on “Displaying and Identifying a Listening Posture”

Preparing the Role Play

Prior to the lesson, Ms. Thomas prepared several scripts for the role play. Each script had defined roles for players and involved scenarios where one player would have to display listening behavior or change their behavior when the other player was not listening. First, Jackson would play the role of the listener, and he would display appropriate listening behavior when another player was speaking. When he mastered that skill, he would play the speaker role. Another player would show signs of not listening, and Jackson would play the role where he had to stop talking about a given topic and ask the person a question.

Prompting Jackson

The lesson began with Ms. Thomas explaining what the role play entailed. She invited three other students to the small group instruction. She gave each student a script and explained the purpose of the script. First, the students took turns playing various roles in three different scripts. The first three scripts focused on Jackson listening as someone else spoke. Because the scripts were relatively brief, Ms. Thomas had each player play each role three times. She also taught Jackson a prompt for listening behavior. When Jackson began to look elsewhere or turn his body away from the peer, Ms. Thomas subtly pointed to the peer to remind Jackson of appropriate listening behaviors.

Next, Ms. Thomas provided scripts for role plays where one player leans back or looks away because they are not interested in the topic. The students were each given a script and assigned roles. The peers rehearsed the scripted scenario a couple of times while Jackson waited and watched. Ms. Thomas explained when it was appropriate for Jackson to stop talking and ask a question. The peers rehearsed the scenario, and Jackson played the role of the individual who needed to stop talking and ask a question. Ms. Thomas gave Jackson feedback throughout the scenario, and taught Jackson a prompt for asking a question. When the listener’s behavior indicated they were not interested in the conversation, Ms. Thomas signed “stop” (by holding up one of her hands, palm out) to Jackson. This indicated Jackson should stop talking and ask the peer a question about themselves.

Recruiting Support from the Paraprofessional

Following the lesson, Ms. Thomas met with Jackson’s paraprofessional, Mr. McBride to train him to prompt and reinforce Jackson. She explained that Jackson was working on displaying and identifying an appropriate listening posture during social interactions. She showed Mr. McBride the prompts Jackson had been taught (the subtle finger point at a peer to encourage Jackson’s listening behavior, and the stop sign to encourage Jackson to stop talking about a topic and ask a question). Ms. Thomas trained Mr. McBride to use these prompts to prime Jackson for listening well during conversations and to help Jackson navigate instances where peers were not listening to him. When Jackson demonstrated the target behavior, Mr. McBride would discreetly reinforce Jackson by giving him a token. Jackson would be able to trade in five tokens for an item off of his reinforcement menu.