TEACHING ADULTS WITH SEVERE AND PROFOUND RETARDATION TO EXIT THEIR HOMES UPON HEARING THE FIRE ALARM

Prompting, modeling, and differential reinforcement with client‐chosen rewards were used to teach 3 nonverbal people with severe to profound mental retardation to exit their group homes at the sound of the house fire alarm, using a multiple baseline design. All 3 participants learned to exit independently in less than 2 min in all experimenter‐initiated surprise fire drills and in the majority of staff‐initiated surprise fire drills. Each participant was also able to exit from five areas of the house from which teaching was not done. 1991 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior