HIGH-LEVERAGE PRACTICES IN General Education and Resource CLASSROOMS

Generalizing in Gen. Ed.:
New Skills in Action

Episode Description

In this episode, Heather and Marla unpack what it really means to help students keep using what they’ve learned—across settings, with new people, and long after instruction ends. They talk about the difference between practicing a skill and actually owning it, and why independence is the real marker of success.

Marla shares everyday examples and classroom takeaways that help clarify what it looks like when a student has truly generalized a skill versus when the adults are unintentionally maintaining it for them. Together, they reflect on the importance of fading supports, planning for independence, and being honest about what kind of progress is actually happening.

Key Points and Takeaways

  • Understanding these concepts is crucial for teaching students to transfer skills across different settings and ensure long-term retention.
  • True generalization is reflected in a student's ability to perform skills independently of where or with whom they learned them.
  • Effective educators need to plan for generalization and maintenance from the start, using varied reinforcement schedules and creating commonalities between classroom and real-world settings.
  • Methods such as distributed practice, overlearning trials, and reinforcement schedules are essential for helping students retain and apply their skills.
  • Successful implementation of these strategies relies heavily on the collective effort of educators, school leaders, and support staff.
Podcast Guest

Marla Watts-Pacheco, MS, BCBA

Marla Watts-Pacheco is a qualified behavioral health professional and behavior consultant specializing in family engagement, developmental disabilities, autism spectrum disorder, and organizational behavior management. She has been a behavior analyst, behavior specialist, and ABA therapist in clinic, school, and in-home settings. Outside of her professional work, she enjoys time with her family and exploring new places with her husband. Marla is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with her Bachelors in Behavioral Science and Masters in Applied Behavior Analysis.

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High-Leverage Practice #21:
Teach students to maintain and generalize new learning across time and settings.
Effective teachers use specific techniques to teach students to generalize and maintain newly acquired knowledge and skills. Using numerous examples in designing and delivering instruction requires students to apply what they have learned in other settings. Educators promote maintenance by systematically using schedules of reinforcement, providing frequent material reviews, and teaching skills that are reinforced by the natural environment beyond the classroom. Students learn to use new knowledge and skills in places and situations other than the original learning environment and maintain their use in the absence of ongoing instruction.
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When we teach a skill, we want to make sure that despite how different that environment may be... it’s going to produce the same result.

marla watts-pacheco

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Host: Heather Volchko

Guest: Marla Watts-Pacheco

For this high-leverage practice, today we are talking about teaching students to maintain and generalize new learning across time and settings. So at this point, we've gone through so many of the details and strategies, all the little bits and pieces, and this one is particularly talking about how do we then keep that going? I know sometimes as sped teachers, we are so focused on making those discrete progress moments happen that we kind of forget to step back and say, Oh, can they actually continue to do it? So I'm really excited. I've got Marla here again with me this week to talk about these things, and she has done both maintenance and generalization in really cool ways across a bunch of different settings. So, Marla, for you, when we're talking maintenance and generalization, what is it?

So generalization is basically, I'm going to explain this in layman's terms, a skill that you are taught in one setting, are they able to translate, transfer, or generalize those skills to other settings with other people? And then maintenance is if you are maintaining, if you are keeping that active skill throughout time.

But for example, I am able to make a meal here at my house. If I go to a different kitchen that looks different, right? Am I able to produce the same result, which is to make a meal in that kitchen? And maintenance would be like, Am I keeping up with that skill? Another one would be, if you are learning how to... you're potty trained, right? You're learning how to potty train, right?

And you've had success in voiding in the toilet of your home. And then, now are you generalizing that same skill to other toilets? So maybe at school or in the community, at a store, at grandma's house. So again, just kind of giving examples of what that means, but basically, are they transferring those skills somewhere else with other people, and are they maintaining that skill over time?

Very cool.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, no, those are great definitions. And so clean and direct. The BCBA side of you coming out.

I was trying to think, and I'm sure there's better examples out there, but that was the quickest thing I could come up with. But I mean, yeah, it's something that we practice on a day-to-day basis when working with our clients.

Yeah. So what makes it generalization as opposed to just going and practicing skills in other places? What makes it actually a generalized skill?

What makes it a generalized skill is that they're able to apply it in various settings, not just in the classroom, not just in the home. They're able to apply their skills with different folks that are present with different things, right? So, in behavior analysis, we are strong believers that environment influences behavior, right? And so when we teach a skill, we want to make sure that despite how different that environment may be or what variables and things that it may bring, it's going to produce the same result that you were teaching that student or that client.

So that's why I was saying earlier, for example, like using the bathroom, right? Are they generalizing that? Brushing their teeth, washing their hands, greeting people, social cues. Are they picking up those social cues, like the way they are in different places? So I think that's what makes it generalizable, that they are producing the same skill despite where they're at and who they are with and what's there, and that they're demonstrating that skill. And in a sense, it's bring them reinforcement.

I love how you're framing this because there's an aspect of kind of an unstated independence, because you're basically saying we can swap out every single variable, if it's who you're with or where you are or how you're doing, like, all the things. And the skill itself is still going to show up. Sure, maybe it looks slightly different ways or not as fluent or whatever, but the skill itself is showing up, and that's kind of an unstated aspect of independence. I mean, in education and in the classroom, I always looked at it, if you can do it with me in my room, how can I get you to do it in someone else's room, like in their classes? So if I can sit here and I can do math with you, cool. Now let's go to your math teacher, and let's get you to do it in their room with those students in that environment, right? How can I transfer what you're doing here into where you actually need to be doing those things, right? And I'm not talking about all the other high leverage practices that are explicit teaching and breaking skills down and all that stuff.

 I'm saying that you've got the skill; you just need to apply it with a different person. I'm just a safety blanket right now. You don't actually need me. You can actually go do it somewhere else. And so that's, I think, in my background from the classroom teacher usually working in self-contained or pull-out ways, the goal was to then be able to get that inclusion piece. And can they actually perform it in those inclusion spaces with less and less either resource or inclusion support, and then, of course, maintain it? Can they keep doing that? 

Do we have those bumps in the road? Whatever. But can we get them to be more successful, more independently, in those lesser restrictive environments and with, you know, less support over time?

Correct. And I think you said it, independence, right? That's when you know it's generalized because that student or that person is able to exhibit that behavior on their own without anyone helping them, and they're able to keep doing it, right? So that's how you know it's being maintained. So independence is a big thing, but to summarize it, independence is once they're able to do it on their own, that's when it's like, “Okay, I think the skill has been generalized. They're able to do it now on their own, despite who's there and what.”

But, yeah, so I 100% agree with that.

So then, if we're talking about “this is what generalization and maintenance is”, what is it not?

Yes, good question. So what is not generalized and what's not maintained is when someone is constantly doing the work for them, right? So they're not being given the chance to show how they can be independent with this skill. So, to me, what's not generalized is if they're not able to do it by themselves and they're not able to transfer that skill anywhere else, with anyone else.

So sometimes we get certain-, and I've seen this happen before where certain students are only able to exhibit a certain behavior in the presence of specific people in a specific environment.

But when they are placed with other people in a different setting, they can't. And so that's, as a BCBA, that's a cue for me of like, “okay, this skill has not been fully generalized.” Also, if it's a skill that's also being done by others for them. And I don't know if you've seen that, too, Heather, a little bit on your end.

Yeah. I mean, yes, I'll echo everything you're saying because for me, it shows up even within, we would call it those restrictive programming. And so if I have a student who is in maybe a more self-contained type of program and the goal is to move them in that more inclusive direction, sometimes I'll work with staff that are like, “Hey, look like we were stuck in that classroom all day, every day, and now look like we're over here and we're doing our thing.”

But when you actually go into those more inclusive spaces, the kids off to the side, not actually with the class, they typically have high level of staff support, and they kind of just replicated that self-contained program in an inclusion space, but that's not actually inclusion unless they're there for social inclusion and we're not, you know- I'm thinking specifically about the academic inclusion. If you're really just running the same program but in a different four walls, the kid hasn't generalized much of anything.

You might be trying to set them up to be able to generalize things more smoothly or more easily because they're already kind of in that space. So, some things won't be as unfamiliar as what it might be if we're coming from a self-contained location into a more inclusion or general education location. But the reality is they're still receiving the same amount of support, they're still working on the same skills. There's really not any difference.

And so I always run up into the conversation of going, like, the location doesn't actually define anything; it's that level of support. And to be truly generalizing, the level of support needs to be pretty darn low. We're teaching the generalization, that's different. Now, if we've actually generalized that skill, well, then that means they don't need us, or they need us a lot less. And so one of the things we talk about maintaining those skills is if I just have to keep working with the kid, and that's the only way they can keep performing, they're not actually maintaining, I am maintaining. I'm maintaining their skills for them because I have to keep helping them and I keep providing those supports. 

Again, it's not a problem. There's nothing wrong with it. But don't consider that the student maintaining their own skills because it's actually the support that is maintaining those skills with the student. So how that shows up, I know I see it very different in terms of IEP goals or how we write accommodations or service provisions and how it's discussed.

So I know I've kind of had uncomfortable conversations with different either IEP teams or even just case management teams saying I hear how you are seeing this as progress, and it's not not progress. But it maybe isn't the full what you're saying that it is because it does..- it takes that moment to be like, oh, man, you're right. I am continuing to help them way more. Like, yes, they're in a different room. Yes.

And I think a big win is when we have those students who have incredibly unsafe behaviors, and they really cannot be in inclusive settings. So it is a win to say they don't need to be in a self contained space because they're not flipping out and throwing stuff and cursing people out and being physically dangerous and all that stuff. That's gone by the wayside, so maybe that is on maintenance. Cool.

That's great. But they're not actually then maintaining their academic skills, there's other pieces that then we're still working on. So it's not just like, cool kids good to go. It's like, oh, gosh, we're actually providing a high level of support, and that is what's actually maintaining, even if the environment itself changed.

Yeah. And I think what you're saying is that what you've seen is they're just simulating, right? That classroom, that setting. And they're like, oh, we're seeing success. And it's like, yeah, but is it because we've added the same amount of support? Have we faded our support where we've seen a glimpse of independency? And I think I've also seen that as well working in schools and then having some of those conversations where, you think it's progress, but it's not really progress because of x, y, z.

I think there are great intentions, right? That we want to help students and we're by our students. We want to ensure that they're getting the services and support that they need. However, when do we start fading that a little wee bit? Because, again, doing right by our students is treating them with dignity, treating them with respect, and treating them like any other human being, and that comes with them being independent.

So, I definitely hear you on that. And as I hear you talk, I'm like, yes, I 100% understand that. But it's-... I think I've also seen the same thing where it's just like, well, we can call it that it's progress, but is it progress that they're doing this and all that? But I think that's where you need to just also make sure that you can talk to your team about that and then brainstorm other ways of how you can support them. Different ways of supporting them.

Yeah, there's all kinds of different forms of progress, and it's just a matter of acknowledging which ones are what kinds.

Correct, yeah.

Well, thank you so much. I know maintenance and generalization are things that are huge in the behavior analysis community, and it's kind of a, maybe an unspoken assumption in education sometimes, as if we don't need to continue teaching and the kids making those discrete progress moves, that they're just maintaining their skills, they're just going to be able to do things, or we just kind of assume or expect that they're just going to generalize things because they could do it here, so they could clearly do it there.

So thank you for taking the time to really dive into that and show that there are so many more other smaller moving pieces that actually make it possible. But, yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise.

Well, thank you, Heather. Thank you so much.

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Sometimes we kind of assume or expect that [students] are just going to generalize things because they could do it here, so they could clearly do it there.

heather volchko

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Generalization and maintenance of newly acquired skills are ongoing challenges for students with disabilities, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder. Generalization refers to the ability to perform a learned behavior in different environments from where it was initially taught. This process doesn’t happen by chance; it needs to be systematically programmed into the instruction. Research has shown that skill development follows a clear sequence: students first acquire accuracy, then move toward fluency, maintenance, and finally generalization. For generalization to take place, students must practice skills across various settings and with different instructors. It’s crucial to vary the instructions and reinforcers and create commonalities between the teaching environment and real-world settings to help students use these skills beyond the classroom. 


On the other hand, maintenance happens when a student continues using a learned skill without the need for further instruction. Teachers play a significant role here, using reinforcement schedules, regular reviews of material, and other methods to ensure that learned behaviors are retained in new environments. This reduces the student’s dependency on the teacher and makes their skills more functional in everyday life. Effective educators understand that both generalization and maintenance need to be planned for from the start, ensuring these strategies are embedded into the teaching of new academic or social skills.


A defining challenge for students with disabilities is their difficulty in transferring newly learned content and skills to settings beyond where they were initially taught. This makes it essential for educators to explicitly teach how to apply that knowledge in different environments. While explicit instruction and providing feedback are crucial to this process, collaboration among teachers is equally important to ensure students can generalize and maintain these skills. By working together, educators can create a strategic plan to help students apply key knowledge across various settings. Additionally, promoting maintenance of these skills involves the use of structured reinforcement schedules, frequent reviews of the material, and focusing on skills that naturally carry over into the student's daily life outside the classroom. Effective teaching doesn’t just stop at content delivery—it ensures students can use what they’ve learned in the real world.


Teachers who excel at promoting active student engagement play a pivotal role in helping students generalize skills and behaviors across different settings. The techniques that work in one environment should be applied consistently wherever the desired behavior is expected. This involves helping students recognize natural reinforcements, whether it's social cues or environmental rewards. It's about expanding their ability to respond appropriately in a variety of situations, people, and contexts by using a range of examples during instruction. Reinforcement schedules play a key role, with strategies such as indiscriminable contingencies keeping students engaged by making reinforcement less predictable, encouraging the persistence of positive behaviors. 


Another crucial element is programming similar stimuli between training and real-world settings, ensuring that the cues for desired behaviors are consistent. Teaching self-management skills, such as self-monitoring and reporting on their own progress, helps students take ownership of their learning and behavior, which in turn aids generalization. Verbal instructions also support this process by prompting students to think about how their behaviors should translate into new contexts.


On the maintenance side, effective teachers use reinforcement schedules to ensure that positive behaviors continue long after initial teaching. Starting with continuous reinforcement, where every instance of a desired behavior is rewarded, and gradually shifting to intermittent schedules ensures that behaviors become ingrained. Overlearning trials and distributed practice are key techniques that provide students with additional opportunities to reinforce and solidify their skills.


Data collection plays an essential role in monitoring the generalization and maintenance of behaviors. Timing and setting are important factors in gathering meaningful data, and selecting a reliable data collection system helps teachers track progress effectively. By summarizing the data visually and comparing student performance over time, educators can identify areas where additional support or adjustments are needed to promote further generalization and success.


For school leaders looking to support teachers effectively, focusing on professional development and coaching is crucial. It's not just about providing instruction but also about guiding educators in selecting and implementing strategies that enhance students' ability to generalize and maintain their skills. Observing classroom practices and offering targeted feedback or coaching helps ensure that these strategies are applied correctly and effectively.


Encouraging collaboration among all school professionals is another key aspect. Promoting generalization and maintenance of skills isn't a solo effort; it's a team-oriented process that benefits from the input and coordination of everyone involved. Facilitating this collaboration ensures that all team members are aligned in their approach and understand their roles in supporting students.


Additionally, equipping educators with the skills to teach self-management behaviors to students is essential. This includes providing targeted instruction and professional development in how to help students develop self-regulation and independent learning strategies. By focusing on these areas, school leaders can help create a more supportive and effective learning environment that fosters long-term success for all students.


Systematically programming for the generalization and maintenance of new learning is a practice deeply rooted in empirical evidence, especially when it comes to teaching students with disabilities. This approach is not just a theoretical ideal but a proven method for helping students retain and apply social and academic skills across various settings and with different instructors.


The foundational techniques for this practice have been validated through numerous studies. These techniques, primarily evaluated through single-case methodology, have shown significant success in enhancing student outcomes. Single-case designs are particularly effective for intervention research aimed at improving the educational experiences of students with disabilities.


According to established guidelines for evidence-based practices, the studies supporting these techniques meet the rigorous criteria for evidence-based practice. This means that the methods used are not only well-researched but also validated through practical application, ensuring they are effective in real-world educational settings.

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