Teaching the Response-Recode Form to Adults with Mental Retardation Using AAC Systems

To facilitate functional communication for persons with mental retardation, users of augmentative and alternative communication systems should develop skills needed to maintain conversational balance. The response-recode (R-R) linguistic form is an appropriate method for achieving more favorable conversational balance. Therefore, a protocol was developed to efficiently train three adults with mental retardation who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) systems to demonstrate the R-R form. This report highlights clinical procedures used to teach the R-R form effectively and efficiently and examines the permanence of the behavior. Results indicated that each participant learned to use the R-R form in conversation with trained clinicians and continued to use the form 1 and 3 weeks after training.