Acquisition and Generalization of Purchasing Skills Using a Calculator by Students who are Mentally Retarded

In this study two students with moderate mental retardation were taught to use a pocket calculator to make purchases. The study extended previous research by including progressive time delay and general case programming in the instructional package. Results indicated that purchasing behaviors generalized from the classroom training setting to two untrained community sites and from training examples to un-trained items. In addition, the newly acquired skills maintained over a four week period once training ended.