Self-prompted Communication Book Use to Increase Social Interaction Among High School Students

This investigation examined the effects of self-prompted communication book training provided by peers on the conversational initiations of four high school students with extensive support needs. The inter-vention was associated with increases in participants ' ap-propriate initiations and general education conversa-tional partners ' corresponding responses. The self-prompting strategy also was associated with increases in conversational topics discussed and decreases in inap-propriate initiations by participants. In addition, inter-views conducted postintervention generally indicated that participants believed they had (a) met their social goals to increase their interactions with their general edu-cation peers and (b) made more friends at school. Im-plications of findings are discussed and suggestions made for future programmatic efforts. DESCRIPTORS: self-prompting, communication book use, high school students Education focuses not only on academic achieve-ment, but social development as well. Social develop-ment of students with disabilities may be promoted by interaction with their general education peers (Kennedy, Cushing, & Itkonen, 1997). Consequently, one rationale for increasing the amount of time stu-dents with disabilities spend in general education set-tings is promoting social interactions of these students with their peers (Individuals with Disabilities Educa-tion Act [IDEA] Amendments, 1997). Some students, however, may lack the social skills that allow them to interact with their peers and important others within a social environment (Morweet et al., 1999). Conse-quently, they may be in physical proximity with thei