Shopping within a Budget : Analysis of Environmental Factors for Generalization-An Adolescent with Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

Several recent publications have reported attempts to teach shopping skills as part of the community living skills for people with developmental disabilities. This article reports on 3 studies examining the effect of training a student with developmental disabilities in shopping skills in a simulation setting, on his shopping in actual stores. A 16 yr old boy with developmental disabilities was trained to choose items within the amount of money that he had available, and to pay the correct price for those items. In Studies 1 and 2, he was trained in an analog store setting. In Study 3, the effect of the training was assessed in 3 actual stores. In this in vivo setting, generalization was not observed. In these stores, many items were for sale, and they had no—or obscure—price tags, so that he could not discriminate their prices. In spite of this, when prompting stickers that clearly showed the price of the items was stuck on them by the trainer, he was able to choose items within the amount of money that he had available, and to pay for them at the checkout counter. The results are discussed in terms of environmental factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)