Acquiring new skills that enhance an individual’s quality of life is at the forefront of applied behavior analysis (ABA) and other therapies for neurodivergent children. However, learning new skills is only useful when the child can use those skills outside of a structured teaching setting and in their natural environment. Generalizing skills is the key that unlocks the door to meaningful and lasting behavior change.
Generalization is the ability to demonstrate skills learned under certain conditions to other situations. The importance of generalizing skills cannot be understated. Generalization improves a learner’s long-term retention of skills. It also increases independence and allows the individual to use learned skills in the settings and situations where they are the most valuable.
Let’s review the three main categories of generalization.
Response generalization occurs when a child learns a particular skill and then uses that knowledge to demonstrate other similar skills. For example, imagine a child who learns how to zip their coat. Shortly after, they begin zipping other objects–their backpack, pencil pouch, and other jackets. They would be demonstrating response generalization.
Stimulus generalization occurs when a child demonstrates a particular skill under different conditions than in the original teaching environment. They may demonstrate the skill with new people, in new settings, and with other stimuli. For example, a child attending clinic-based ABA therapy learns to wash their hands independently at the clinic. When they carry that skill over to their home, demonstrating an ability to independently wash their hands at home in their sink, they have shown stimulus generalization.
The third category of generalization is maintenance. Maintenance occurs when an individual continues to demonstrate a skill over time after the skill is no longer being actively taught. For example, a child’s therapist teaches her how to use coping strategies when she is feeling overwhelmed. When she masters this skill in therapy, she continues demonstrating coping strategies without additional training or prompting.
Generalization of skills does not always come naturally. This is especially true of children with neurodivergence. In ABA therapy, behavior analysts implement strategies to promote the generalization of skills to ensure their learners can effectively use the skills learned in therapy outside of the structured teaching setting.
Let’s discuss a few of the common strategies for promoting generalization.
When teaching new skills, we use a wide variety of teaching stimuli. For example, if a child is learning to label shoes, we would teach using pictures of various types and styles of shoes. We would also teach using different examples of actual shoes. Allowing the child to learn what shoes are with multiple examples increases stimulus generalization.
It’s important for children to learn to demonstrate skills across multiple people—for example, different therapists, teachers, parents, and caregivers. Often, we do this by having more than one therapist working with each child to ensure they can demonstrate skills with more than one person.
New skills should be learned in multiple environments. Caregiver involvement in therapy can help ensure skills learned in therapy are practiced at home and in other settings.
Avoid getting stuck on the same instruction. Change it up to teach the learner that different questions have the same meaning. For example, “When is your birthday?” and “What’s your date of birth?” are the same question, worded differently.
Be sure to reinforce the variability in a learner’s responses. There are often multiple appropriate ways to do the same thing, so it’s crucial to avoid reinforcing rigidity in responding.
Generalization is essential for long-term success and maintenance of skills. If you’re interested in pursuing therapy that focuses on whole child development, contact Sunny Raindrops today. We offer interdisciplinary therapeutic services and enrichment activities available for all children. Start on your child’s skill development journey today!
References
Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2019). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd Edition).
Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.
Stokes, T. F. & Baer, D. M. (1977). An implicit technology of generalization. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 10, 349–367.
