Acquisition, Maintenance, and Transfer of Grocery Item Purchasing Skills by Moderately and Severely Handicapped Students

Four moderately and severely retarded young adults were taught to use a pocket calculator to purchase taxable and nontaxable supermarket items and picture prompt cards to account for state sales tax. A multiple probe design across four students was employed to evaluate the procedures. Results indicated that all four students reached criterion on the eight-step task analysis. Following the multiple-probe demonstration of program efficacy, 12 additional students were taught the purchasing skills. Follow-up probes provide partial support for the contention that students used the skills acquired during training to facilitate their performance in a natural environment and maintain the skills over a 3-month period during which instruction was not provided.