A comparison of cognitive and behavioral programs to promote the transfer of learning across educational settings for four learning disabled children
Date
1984
Authors
Freeze, Donald Richard
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Abstract
With the growth in popularity of special education resource rooms to deliver instruction to learning disabled students, effective means are needed to promote the transfer of academic learning across educational settings. An experimental study is described in which behavioristic and cognitive programs to promote transfer of academic learning across educational settings for four learning disabled children are compared. Three grade four girls and one grade five boy were taught four parallel tasks, on alternate days, in a special education setting. Later, the children's correct responding on a transfer task was recorded in the regular classroom. Each day, for each child, represented a different transfer program. A multi-element baseline design was used over an eight week period to demonstrate differences and similarities between the transfer programs. The results showed that task-specific problem solving strategies were significantly more effective in promoting transfer than a behavioristic program which involved matching the environmental characteristics across the settings. The contention that the transfer of adaptive classroom behaviors and the transfer of academic learning may be explained and promoted by different factors was supported.