GENERALIZATION:

Five Effective Strategies

Margo A. Mastropieri
Thomas E. Scruggs

Specific instructional strategies will allay

transitional problems when the student moves from a
special education to a mainstream setting.

After a recent faculty meeting, Ms. R, a special education

teacher, was confronted by a regular classroom teacher: "Your
student, Billy, doesn't belong in my class! I am all in favor of
mainstreaming, but Billy can't solve the simplest math prob-
lems, and I can't even get him to stay in his seat. What am I sup-
posed to do with him when I have 25 other students to think
about?"
Ms. R felt frustrated and helpless. She knew Billy had done
well in math in her room, and he was never a behavior prob-
lem. But when Billy left her resource room, he also left her con-
trol. What can she do to keep him in the mainstream?
Billy's problem is not that he has not learned appropriate
social and academic skills; the problem is that he does not
demonstrate these skills consistently across classroom settings.
We refer to situations like the one just described as problems in
generalization of learned academic or social skills.

The Problem of Generalization

W e have investigated the problem of generalization in
special education over a recent two-year period (Mastropieri &

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Scruggs 1981; Scruggs, Mastropieri, & Rutherford 1982). We
found that virtually all of the special education teachers we
spoke to had encountered problems similar to Billy's in their
own school situations. We, therefore, felt it necessary to in-
vestigate more closely the nature of generalization problems
and the most effective means for solving them.
Effective academic and/or social behavior change prob-
lems require that newly acquired behaviors be generalized to
other situations in a variety of settings. Special and regular
education teachers often assume that students will apply the
behaviors learned in special education settings to tasks in the
regular classroom. Many researchers, however, have found
that spontaneous generalization of behaviors across settings
frequently does not occur. Generalization must be planned.
Or, as some authors have stated, "Generalization should be
programmed rather than expected or lamented" (Baer, Wolf, &
Risley 1968). Although some generalization training has been
successful (e.g., Lebsock & Salzberg 1981), generalization
efforts often have failed.

Recommendations
In order to help solve these problems, we tested a com-
bination of instructional strategies to help children generalize
what they had learned. We ordered these strategies from those
requiring the least amount of teacher time to those demanding
the greatest amount of teacher time. We found that, in many
cases, very simple interventions were all that was necessary. In
other cases, more demanding strategies were necessary. If the
first intervention failed, we implemented the second one; if the
second one failed, we tried the third, and so on. In all cases in
which special and regular education teachers cooperated, the
intervention efforts were successful. The following, then, are
the strategies that were used, arranged in the order in which
they were implemented:
1. Verbal or written instructions. The teacher
reminded the student that he has performed this
academic or social skill successfully in the special
educational setting. The student was also remind-
ed that the same performance was expected in
the regular classroom. These were either verbal

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 reminders or notes written directly to the
student.
Although this strategy seems too simple to be
effective, we found that, in many cases, this was
all that was necessary. Apparently, this strategy
was so simple that it was often overlooked by
busy teachers.
2. Feedback. The teacher provided the student with
feedback immediately following performance of
the target skill. For example, the teacher might
correct the student's academic work and post his
achievements in a public place. The teacher also
provided verbal feedback immediately after pro-
duction of a targeted social behavior. For exam-
ple, a teacher might say, "I like the way you
raised your hand to answer that question."
3. Reteaching and positive practice. The teacher
"retaught" targeted skills in the regular class set-
ting, using the same instructional procedures as
the special education teacher. For example, if the
special education teacher had taught long divi-
sion using a specific rule ("How many, multiply,
subtract, bring down"), the regular classroom
teacher "retaught" this same rule.
Positive practice, similar to "reteaching,"
simply consisted of the teacher's requiring the
student to practice the skill correctly several
times. This could have been done immediately
after "reteaching."
4. Rewards or contracts. The teacher gave the stu-
dent a direct reward for demonstrating the ap-
propriate skill in the regular class. This reward
could take the form of classroom or school
privileges, free time, or, if necessary, points or
tokens which could be exchanged at a later time
for something the student desired. Contracts are
written agreements between student and teacher
specifying a longer-term reward and the
academic or social skills which must be per-
formed to earn the reward. For example, the stu-

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 dent could contract to earn a field trip by display-
ing behavior to a specific standard over a two-
week period.
5. Enlisting peer cooperation. In this last and most
time consuming intervention, the teacher
enlisted the aid of other students in the class to
help the mainstreamed student. The teacher
paired the students with a peer who, at specified
times, tutored the student in the targeted skill
area. The teacher also could offer rewards to the
entire class (extra recess, et cetera) if the student
performed the specified behavior to a certain
criterion. In practice, this intervention was rarely
necessary.

Successful Applications
We found that teachers were able to successfully apply
these strategies to their students across a wide range of ability
levels and ages. Learning disabled, mentally retarded,
behaviorally disordered, as well as gifted students in elemen-
tary and secondary programs, all benefited from the use of one
or more of these strategies. In addition, these strategies were
successful in promoting generalization in many seemingly dif-
ferent academic and social skill areas. We have seen these in-
terventions successfully applied to math and reading skills.
They have also been applied to social skills and used to in-
crease voluntary class contributions and to decrease verbal and
physical disruptive acts. It was interesting to note that, in many
cases, the simplest interventions were seen to be very effective.
Although generalization problems will continue to exist in
special education, we hope that the application of these
specific instructional strategies will be useful to many
classroom teachers. Problems such as "Billy's" can be over-
come, given some teacher effort as well as the appropriate
techniques.

References
Baer, D.M., Wolf, M.M., & Risley, T.R. 1968. Some current dimen-
sions of applied behavior analysis, journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis 1, pp. 91-97.

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Lebsock, M.S., & Salzberg, C.L. 1981. The use of role play and rein-
forcement procedures in the development of generalized inter-
personal behavior with emotionally disturbed-behavior dis-
ordered adolescents in a special education classroom. Behavioral
Disorders 6, pp. 150-163.
Mastropieri, M.A., & Scruggs, T.E. 1981. Promoting generalization
from special education to regular classroom settings. Paper
presented at the Fifth Annual Conference on Severe Behavior
Disorders in Children and Youth, Tempe, AZ.
Scruggs, T.E., Mastropieri, M.A. & Rutherford, R.B. 1982. Effects of
four intervention strategies in promoting setting generalization.
Paper presented at the 90th Annual Meeting of the American
Psychological Association, Washington, D.C.

Margo A. Mastropieri, PhD, and Thomas E. Scruggs, PhD, are members of the
faculty of the Exceptional Child Center, Utah State University, Logan, UT
84322.
ATP

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