Massed versus Practiced Approach
Massed versus Practiced Approach
Instruction is most effective when opportunities to acquire and practice skills occur across the day as opposed to single points in time (Wolery, Ault, & Doyle, 1992). Although direct instruction is useful in helping individuals acquire discrete skills (e.g., saying please and thank you), providing multiple opportunities throughout the day to practice these skills facilitates generalization or transfer of learning to other environments and settings. In the absence of distributed learning opportunities, enhancement of skills outside of the specific learning context is limited. Relevant resources suggest that learning opportunities for children be distributed and opportunities for learning be present across the day (Hemmeter, 2000; Sandall & Schwartz, 2002; Wolery, 2000).