This study took place in a large midwestern university dining hall during the lunch and dinner periods. Supervisors and co-workers indicated that topic repetition of a mentally handicapped worker during the lunch and dinner periods was markedly higher than that of staff co-workers in that setting. Therefore, co-workers were provided preinstruction on how to use feedback when a topic was repeated. Also, the subject was informed of his co-workers’ intentions. Further, co-worker feedback was tried following a no treatment condition (Baseline) and was reintroduced after experimenter/observer feedback was tried in an ABCBD reversal design. The last phase incorporated a combination of Co-worker plus an Experimenter/Observer providing feedback. Results indicated that the Experimenter/Observer and the Co-worker plus Experimenter/Observer phases were most effective in reducing topical repeats to co-workers levels (comparative social validation measure). When the co-workers were left alone to provide feedback they, in fact, did not do so. Of particular interest was the finding that ratings by co-workers indicated they believed the handicapped worker was not reducing the number of repeats -a finding contrary to the direct measure. Explanations for this discrepancy as well as areas of future research are presented.
Rusch et al. (Wed,) studied this question.