Ms. March is teaching Matthew to do his laundry. She has written a task analysis for doing laundry, which consists of 36 steps. She conducted an initial assessment to identify which steps Matthew could already do, and she discovered that the only step he can presently do independently is to open the lid to the washer. She decides to use total task presentation as her method of teaching this complex chain of behaviors, using a least-to-most prompting strategy. What might be one disadvantage to this procedure?
a. This procedure is likely to make each training session quite long.
b. Matthew may become confused with the sequence of the task because the teaching procedure involves having him do the last step, then the last two steps, and so on.
c. Because Matthew's present behavior will be placed on extinction until he emits a new behavior that is closer to the terminal behavior, he will likely become very frustrated.
d. All of these are reasonable concerns given the teaching context.
Question 2
Mr. Worms is teaching an adult (Sandie) who lives in his group home to make macaroni and cheese from a box. Mr. Worms prompts Sandie to do all steps of the task using full physical prompts, except for the last step, which is to serve the macaroni and cheese on a plate. For this step, Mr. Worms is using a most-to-least prompting sequence. When Sandie has mastered that skill, Mr. Worms plans to have Sandie do the stirring and the serving (the last two steps of the task). What procedure is Mr. Worms using?
a. Forward chaining
b. Backward chaining
c. Total-task chaining
d. Shaping
