Comparing Video Prompting to Video Modeling for Teaching Daily Living Skills to Six Adults with Developmental Disabilities

We compared two procedures (video prompting versus video modeling) for teaching six adults with developmental disabilities to set a table and put away groceries. Video prompting involved 10 separate video clips, each showing one step of the task analysis. Video modeling involved a single video showing all 10 steps from beginning to end. After watching the respective video clips, participants were given the opportunity to complete the task. Video prompting and video modeling procedures were counter-balanced across tasks and participants and compared in an alternating treatments design. Video prompting was effective in promoting rapid acquisition across both tasks in all but one case. Video modeling, in contrast, was generally shown to be ineffective. These data suggest that the number, duration, and/or perspective from which the video clips are filmed may influence their effectiveness as a teaching tool for individuals with developmental disabilities. An important long-term objective of educational programs for people with developmental disabilities is the promotion of valued social roles (Wolfensberger, 2000). Given this objective, behavior modification should focus, in part, on teaching functional, age-appropriate skills that enable the individual to assume valued social roles (Brown, 1979; Thompson & Grabowski, 1977). One valued social role for adults in Western societies is independence in completing various daily living tasks, such as putting away groceries and setting the table for lunch (Kroska, 2003; Wilk, 1989). When an individual presents with significant deficits in adaptive behavior functioning, as is common for many adults with developmental disabilities (Jacobson & Ackerman, 1990; Kraijer, 2000), they may be unable to assume this valued social role. Explicit training is often required to teach the necessary skills (Duker, Didden, & Sigafoos, 2004). Until such time when this training is successful, the individual will remain dependent on others, with the consequential risk of being de-valued (Wolfensberger). In addition, their lack of contribution to the completion of daily living tasks creates an imbalance in the division of labor and thus increases the overall burden of care (Haveman, van Berkum, Rejinders, & Heller, 1997). Given the social value of independent living, it is not surprising that development of daily living skills figures heavily in the habilitative plans of adults with developmental disabilities (Stancliffe, Hayden, & Lakin, 2000). Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a grant from the Texas Health and Human Services Commission [CAT-D (Computer Accommodations for Texans with Disabilities) Grant Project]. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agency. The CAT-D project team included: Megha Upadhyaya, Alonzo Andrews, Anna Hundley, Carolyn Garver, and David Young. We are grateful to the staff of The Autism Treatment Centers of Dallas and San Antonio for their assistance in this project. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Helen Cannella-Malone, The Ohio State University, School of Physical Activity & Educational Services, 356G Arps Hall, 1945 North High Street, Columbus, OH 43210. Email: [email protected] Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 2006, 41(4), 344–356 © Division on Developmental Disabilities 344 / Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities-December 2006 Nor is it surprising that a considerable amount of applied intervention research has focused on developing new and more effective procedures for teaching daily living skills to individuals with developmental disabilities (Belfiore & Mace, 1994). Along these lines, recent evidence suggests that video-based instruction may be a promising new technology for teaching individuals with developmental disabilities (Sturmey, 2003). To date, videobased instructional procedures have been used with some success in teaching a range of adaptive behaviors to individuals with developmental disabilities, including communication (Charlop & Milstein, 1989; Wert & Neisworth, 2003), play (D’Ateno, Mangiapanello, & Taylor, 2003), perspective taking (CharlopChristy & Johneshvar, 2003), social initiation (Nikopoulos & Keenan, 2003), spelling (Kinney, Vedora, & Stromer, 2003), vocational and leisure tasks (Grice & Blampied, 1994), selfcare (Norman, Collins, & Schuster, 2001; Tiong, Blampied, & Le Grice, 1992), and daily living skills (Graves, Collins, Schuster, & Kleinert, 2005; Rehfeldt, Dahman, Young, Cherry, & Davis, 2003; Shimada, Shimizu, & Ujimori, 1998; Shipley-Benamou, Lutzker, & Taubman, 2002; Sigafoos et al., in press). This literature has included various applications of video-based instruction. Two general procedures can be delineated: Video Modeling and Video Prompting (Alberto, Cihak, & Gama, 2005). Video modeling generally involves making a videotape of someone performing the target behavior or completing the designated task. The videotape is then shown to the individual at the beginning of each training session. After viewing the entire videotape— from beginning to end—the individual is then given the opportunity to perform the behavior or complete the task in its entirety. A study by Rehfeldt et al. (2003) illustrates the application of video modeling for teaching daily living skills. The authors focused on teaching three adults with mental retardation to make a sandwich. Their 2.5 min instructional video showed a different adult (i.e., not one of the participants) making a sandwich. Participants were verbally prompted to watch the video prior to each session. After watching the entire video, the participant was given the opportunity to make a sandwich. Results showed that implementation of this video modeling procedure was associated with an increase in the percentage of steps completed correctly and attainment of 100% correct by all three participants within three to seven training sessions. Their data suggest that the video modeling procedure was effective in teaching these adults to make a sandwich. In contrast to video modeling, video prompting involves showing the participant a video clip of one step of the task and then giving the person the opportunity to complete that step before the next step is shown. In addition, these video prompts are often filmed from the perspective of the participant and thus have a subjective viewpoint (Norman et al., 2001; Shipley-Benamou et al., 2002). This subjective viewpoint differs from video modeling, in which the videotape is typically filmed from the perspective of the spectator. To illustrate, Sigafoos et al. (in press) evaluated a video prompting procedure for teaching microwave oven use to three adults with developmental disabilities. The procedure involved showing a video clip of only one step of the task and then giving participants the opportunity to complete that step of the task. After this, a video clip showing the next step of the task was presented and so forth until all 10 steps had been prompted. In addition, each video clip was filmed from the perspective of the person completing the task. With this procedure, two of the three adults acquired the task and continued to perform 80–100% of the steps correctly when video prompting was withdrawn and at a 10-week follow-up. Because video modeling and video prompting differ in these two obvious ways (i.e., number of steps shown in each video clip and the perspective from which the video is filmed), one might expect such differences to influence the relative effectiveness of the two procedures. For example, the literature on response chaining could be interpreted to suggest that the step-by-step approach used in video prompting might result in faster acquisition, at least when teaching multi-component tasks, such as setting a table or putting away a bag of groceries (Duker et al., 2004). Alternatively, by showing the entire sequence of steps in a single video clip, as is typically the case with video modeling, a learner might come to more quickly integrate each separate step of the task. Similarly, the difference in the Prompting Versus Modelling / 345 perspective from which the video clips are filmed (i.e., spectator versus participant viewpoints) might also influence the relative effectiveness of video modeling versus video prompting. While these are interesting speculations with implications for the design of video-based instructional procedures, there appears to be no research comparing the relative effectiveness of video modeling with video prompting. Previous studies have compared video modeling to live (in vivo) modeling (CharlopChristy, Le, & Freeman, 2000) and to static picture prompts (Alberto et al., 2005). In Charlop-Christy et al., video modeling was associated with faster acquisition and better generalization of social, play, and self-help skills in children with autism than in vivo modeling. In Alberto et al., there was no difference in acquisition of community skills (i.e., using an ATM machine to withdraw cash and using a debit card to purchase groceries) for the video modeling versus static picture prompt conditions across eight middle-school students with moderate mental retardation. The present study compared acquisition rates for two daily living tasks when instruction occurred with video modeling versus video prompting. Data of this type may enable educators to design and implement more effective instructional programs using video technology.