Sequence Teacher: Behavioral Teaching Technology

The SBIR application seeks support to develop and study a computer- based product attended primary for teaching children with mental retardation, autism, and other intellectual disabilities. The product addresses a critical skill repertoire involving the production of stimulus sequences. Sequence production is a pre-academic skill relevant to the development of reading, spelling, numeric skills, and concepts, as well as everyday tasks like making a telephone call or operating a vending machine. Research supported by NIH has resulted in the development of techniques that can establish sequencing skills in our target population. These techniques, however, are not readily accessible to parents, professionals and the children who might benefit. This proposal aims to fill that gap by the development of a user-friendly software product for computer-assisted instruction. The basic task involves a form of constructed matching to sample: A sample stimulus is presented to the student, who then must select two or more individual stimuli (e.g., letters, numbers) from a pool to construct a multi-element stimulus complex (e.g., letter-by-letter, number-by-number) that is related to computer screen, and the student would then select the individual letters (S, H, etc.) from an array of letters displayed at the bottom of the screen. As each letter is selected, it moves by computer animation to a position below the picture, so that the student "constructs" the world "SHIRT." The project has two major objectives First, we will adapt well-developed methods from laboratory and applied research for use by teachers, other child care professionals, and parents. Second, we will evaluate the product to determine that it can be used effectively in typical educational situations. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The product being developed and evaluated may have a significant impact on special education practice. As such, the product is potentially marketable to speech/language pathologists, special educators, psychologists, other professionals, and parents.