Ms. Jones decided to focus her lessons on setting generalization. Specifically, she wanted Arturo to demonstrate these skills at lunch and during small group work in social studies class. In these settings, Arturo was most likely to engage in conversations and had often interrupted peers to talk about his special interests.

Ms. Jones operationally defined one outcome that indicated her generalization lessons were effective:

 

• When participating in a conversation in a group of 1-3 peers and a peer is talking, Arturo will wait until the peer is finished talking and ask the peer a question about the conversational topic on 9/10 opportunities.

Ms. Jones then considered an instructional method and setting. Ms. Jones and Arturo’s speech-language pathologist, Ms. Forbes, co-taught a weekly social skills curriculum for Arturo and two other peers. Ms. Jones decided that this small group setting would be ideal for practicing the targeted skills and would benefit the other students as well. Ms. Jones had recently learned that role play was effective for teaching social skills. She worked with Ms. Forbes to prepare scripts for various role play scenarios.

 

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

Ms. Jones knew it would be difficult for Arturo to listen without interrupting and ask questions about topics outside of his interests, and that he was apt to talk over people or leave the conversation. However, Arturo had a self-monitoring system he used for task completion. Arturo had already learned to self-monitor his behavior accurately, and he earned rewards for completing a percentage of tasks each day. Ms. Jones decided she would expand this system for monitoring the targeted skills.

At the end of the day, Arturo would report how well he did and recruit reinforcement. If he had demonstrated the target skills throughout the day, he would earn reinforcement.

Ms. Jones expected Arturo would need some help to generate appropriate questions in conversations. She created picture cards with generic question prompts. One set went inside Arturo’s social studies binder and another inside his lunchbox. These visual prompts paired well with the generalization tactic.

 

• Generalization Tactic: Recruit reinforcement
• Support Strategy: Prompting (visual), reinforcement

Ms. Jones’ Lesson on “Listening Without Interrupting and Asking Questions About a Topic”

 

Developing Role Play Scripts

Ms. Jones recalled that role play requires specific roles for players, situations, and scripts for players to follow, much like a short play. Ms. Jones and Ms. Forbes observed conversations of peers during lunch and during small group instruction and wrote scenarios mirroring real-life interactions. They developed 10 brief scenarios depicting varied conversations related to academic and social skills. Each scenario included a player who asked a question about a given topic.

Modeling and Practicing the Role Play

During small group instruction, Ms. Jones began the lesson by explaining how to participate in the role play. She explained that when others are speaking, it’s important to listen attentively and to wait until the person finishes speaking. Then, it’s appropriate to ask the speaker a question about the conversational topic. Ms. Jones and Ms. Forbes modeled a role play scenario that illustrated how this is done.

Initially, Arturo played the role of the individual asking questions in each scenario. However, because the scenarios were very brief, each student had the chance to play all roles in each scenario, allowing practice in being both the speaker and the listener.

Practicing Asking Questions

After practicing these 10 scenarios, Ms. Jones had the students role play scenarios in which there was no scripted question. They had to come up with the question on their own. She prompted them as needed and gave explicit, immediate feedback on their questions.

To extend this lesson, Ms. Jones asked the students to think of other conversational topics that they regularly heard. She talked about each topic and the students brainstormed questions they could ask to extend the conversation about the topic.

Following the lesson, Ms. Jones met with Arturo individually. She reminded him to use the question cards to help him think of appropriate questions. Together, they practiced forming questions about academic and social topics.

Extending Arturo’s Self-Monitoring System

Ms. Jones also introduced Arturo’s self-monitoring system, in which Arturo would note his progress in a small notebook. She reminded Arturo, that like his other self-monitoring system, it was important that he was honest. Arturo would write the conversational topic and setting following an interaction. He would check a box if he waited for the peer to respond before talking and if he asked a question. Then, he would note the question he asked the peer. Ms. Jones encouraged Arturo to use his visual prompts if he wasn’t sure what to ask. She then told Arturo to bring this notebook to her at the end of each day. If he listened without interrupting and asked a question about the topic for at least four of five opportunities that day, he would choose an item from his reinforcement menu.