| This study examined the effects of teaching students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities to use sight words embedded in an order form to prepare bagged lunches. The intervention package consisted of decontextualized sight word instruction and bagged lunch preparation via peer modeling by other students with intellectual disabilities. A multiple probe design across word sets was employed to evaluate the effects of sight word instruction on four measures: decontextualized flashcard reading, contextualized order from reading, accurate item selection, and bagged lunch preparation task steps. The bagged lunch task analysis was used to measure the participants' comprehension of the target words and their ability to demonstrate stimulus and response generalization. Results indicate that the intervention package was effective in teaching two of the four students to use sight words embedded in order forms to make bagged lunches. They also generalized their ability to making novel bagged lunches when the sight words were recombined on order forms. The advantages of using students with intellectual disabilities as peer-models to promote functional literacy skills are discussed, as well as intervention procedures that promote success when peer modeling is not appropriate. |
