HIGH-LEVERAGE PRACTICES IN Self-contained EBD and Alternative Education CLASSROOMS

From Here to Everywhere: Helping Students Apply and Keep Their Skills

Episode Description

This episode explores how educators can support students in maintaining and generalizing new learning across different environments and over time. Heather and Manny break down the difference between generalization—applying a learned skill in new settings—and maintenance—retaining that skill after time or breaks. Through classroom examples, they highlight strategies like frontloading expectations, building on familiar routines, and prompting students to notice environmental cues.
Manny shares practical methods for supporting students during transitions, including praise, peer modeling, and scaffolding support until it can fade out. The conversation emphasizes the role of check-in/check-out systems as a powerful, data-driven way to monitor both generalization and maintenance of skills. Ultimately, this episode highlights how intentional support and systematic fading can empower students to independently sustain and apply what they’ve learned.

Key Points and Takeaways

  • Generalization occurs when students transfer skills learned in one setting into new environments without needing the entire lesson retaught.
  • Maintenance involves ensuring that students can retain and use those skills over time, even after breaks or without direct coaching.
  • Frontloading, peer modeling, and environmental prompts help students connect familiar skills to new situations and classrooms.
  • Check-in/check-out systems provide a data-driven way to track skill generalization and maintenance across staff, settings, and time.
  • Gradually fading adult support while encouraging self-monitoring and staff feedback allows students to sustain independence.
Podcast Guest

Manny Huecias, RBT

Manny Huecias is a school-based behavior technician specializing in social, emotional, and behavioral challenges experienced by elementary-aged student populations as well as augmented instructional design. He has been a community pop-up virtual learning facilitator and avid volunteer in his community who brings a practical, systems-aware perspective to supporting complex students and the adults doing their best to help them. Outside of his professional work, he has been a special needs inclusion summer camp counselor and an active youth leader in his church. Manny is a Registered Behavior Technician with college coursework in education and psychology.
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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.>
High leverage practice introduction paragraph goes here.

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You've done something like this before, you have the skill, you have the knowledge to be able to do it. Like, you just need a little prompting or a connection.

Manny Huecias

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Host: Heather Volchko

Guest: Manny Huecias

This week, we're talking about High-Leverage Practice number 21. Teach students to maintain and generalize new learning across time and settings. So, Manny, I know you are constantly working with our students who are transitioning from one placement or one environment to another environment. You're constantly leveraging all of these strategies and skills with our students as well as with their staff. So, for you in your practice, what does this look like?

Yeah, so, like, generalization is, did the student take what they learned in this one setting, in this period, in this classroom, in this wherever they are, and can they apply it in a different one without needing the whole lesson to be gone over again? Like the same basic skill to be taught again and again? Maintenance is what typically for me, as an RBT,  it's can they still do that skill when they're not with me in a week later, when I'm revisiting, after they've had Christmas break, after they've had any of these long breaks, when I'm not just sitting there and coaching them through it or talking the whole thing through with them. So, yeah, that's how that appears for me in the classrooms I’m in. 

So then I think let's break this down into two different conversations. I think let's focus on generalization. When you've got a student who has really solidly demonstrated, performed a skill in one, let's say classroom or one environment, one program, and we're getting ready to then help them engage in, in maybe a different classroom or one that has a little bit less support or maybe has more students, what are some of those ways that you're working with the student to help them get ready for that transition?

Especially with some of the younger students I've worked with, think kindergartners, first graders, it's their first year in school. ‘Hey, we're about to go to our classroom. It's still a classroom. We still have the same rules. We still have the same expectations.’ You also have a teacher in here, like, trying to front-load them with how the next place we're going is similar to a place they've already been. I think for the student, letting them know, like, ‘oh, right in this location, we use this skill. So I'm going to use it here.’

So once they've started making some of those connections between what they're familiar with and where they're headed, that's typically where you're like, okay, cool, let's go check that out then. And so there are a bunch of different ways that you've walked with students into those new settings. So what are some of those strategies you're using when the student is now kind of first stepping foot into whatever that next location might be?

I mean, as I'm walking with these students to these new locations, I start by front-loading them on the praise, like, ‘hey, you know, thanks for walking through this hallway super quietly. Or on the whatever squares.’ Like, ‘we don't talk in our classrooms. We don't talk in the hallway, we don't talk where we're going type of thing when the teacher's talking,’ building those connections and building those connections to the praise that I just gave them as well.

Yeah, when I'm walking into a new space with a kiddo, like, again, I'm going back to that I'm building connections with what they already know. But I mean, that kind of reminds me of, I walked with a student as they transitioned from one building to another. And I remember being the only person there that she knew from either location. It was one of those where maybe they'd start getting a little defiant or maybe something would come up, and I'd be like, ‘Hey, remember when we did the same exact thing with this previous staff member that you ended up having a great rapport with?’ Or ‘Hey, do you remember how we did this academic skill with this person that you liked at this other building?’ You know, counselor para, whatever. But with some of my older kids, it's, ‘Hey, do you notice how everyone else kind of opened their textbook or got this particular worksheet out?’

That was super common with some of the EL kids I've worked with. It's trying to build that connection, that generalized connection between, because you've done something like this before, you have the skill, you have the knowledge to be able to do it. Like, you just need a little prompting or a connection to make you look around and be like, Ah, this teacher does this in this order. And it's not how I'm expecting the day to go. That got somewhat tough with some of them. With one classroom, an EL classroom, they had a substitute teacher, and this is a sub that kind of looked at the teacher's friends like, yeah, we're going to do all this. We're just going to do it based on how I'd like the day to go versus where I think y'all will be at the end of the day. And I had one student who relied specifically on visual cues as they were still trying to learn English, just, like, cool at this time. I get it. Y'all do this. Look around, like, new staff member. You don't know how they talk. But you can look around, see what the other students are doing, and you already know to kind of copy what they're doing and ask around to see, hey, what are we doing now, to some of the other EL students who could speak and translate a little bit better.

So I think I'm hearing you talk about there's this aspect of familiarity. So there are things that they have done before, and maybe they're doing again, but it's looking different, feeling different, and they may not be making that actual connection in the moment for themselves, and you're just kind of calling that forward for them. But I think in the way you're talking about this, too, you're kind of talking about, like, reading the room. Like, can you see what's going on around you to then figure out what skills you already have that need to show up at this moment?

And that's where you're talking about, like, can you look at your peers? Can you look at the environment? Can you look at what's going on around you and kind of pick up what it is that we need to do? Because I know what I need to do, I can do. It's just a matter of figuring out how this teacher does it, how this classroom runs, and really making sense of that. So it really kind of sounds like you're almost like a tour guide showing them all the things that are happening and how they can engage with it, even though it may look or feel new to them, that they actually already have all the skills or enough of the skills that they'll totally be able to hang and make it through.

Yeah. And my calling them out and maybe prompting them does not mean that they don't have that skill generalized. Again, especially with some EL students who know how school functions, they just don't know the language. So, because I'm not taking the time to reteach them, okay, and now we look around after the clocks look like this, and you expect this. Like, now you can look around, et cetera. That skill is generalized. It's just letting the student know, ‘hey, you do have that generalized skill.’

Well, and I think that's where you're talking about maintenance, too, right? Because now you've got the skills, and you can just keep using those skills now that you're more familiar with your new environment that's no longer as new, or your new teacher who's no longer as new, or your new peers who are no longer as new, now you've got those skills, you're a little bit more familiar with them. You've kind of generalized that into this new space or classroom, program, whatever. So now, can you maintain those skills while I back myself out of here? I'm not going to come every day. I'm only going to be here at the end of the week, or I'll catch you next month. Like you've been able to provide those supports and then fade yourself out as really kind of a maintenance test for can students continue to perform those skills now that they are generalized into that new situation?

Walk me through for you, what are some of the things you're looking for to make sure that those skills have actually stuck? Like, that they're actually staying the same between the visits that you have, or even just like different people who are working with them?

One of my favorite ways that I've had the, yep, not only did the generalization take, but also they're retaining it, they're maintaining it. It is when staff members come up, and they're like, ‘okay, you know, we've been working on this, and like now they don't even ask if you're coming today or whatever. Do I have to show, do I have to show Mr. Manny that I can still do this?’ Because I've had students, especially while I still have those consecutive days as I'm initially teaching the skill or whatever, ‘hey, look, Mr. Manny, I can do it today. Hey, look, I can do it today.’ And then I'll start the fade off process, and ‘hey, we had an issue with this.’ And I'll be like, ‘Hey bud, like we did this together last time. Like, what's going on?’ You know, but then having a teacher after me doing biweekly visits, monthly visits, as I'm again continuing to fade out, staff members who are like, ‘hey, like, you know, again, we've been working on this. It's great. Like they're able to do it here. And maybe we only worked from this area to this area because that was the initial goal. But they've actually managed to take these skills and do them here as well.’ Like, and the student starts realizing where I can apply these skills, where this place is like this place, or the situations like that situation. And it's one of my favorite ways to know that maintenance is happening.

My other favorite way of getting confirmation of maintenance is being able to slip into one of those familiar classrooms to do an observation where the student isn't necessarily interacting with me directly, or I'm not working with them directly, and being able to just see the kid doing it. And I love it when the teacher recognizes that yes, I'm there checking on how, on how we're maintaining and generalizing, and the kid will do the thing, and the teacher will look at me wide-eyed and smile, and we're like, Yes, we've been doing a good type of thing.

And then the other one is with the, I'm not saying it's not my favorite, but through those check-in check-out sheets that we sometimes run where the kiddo is consistently scoring on their replacement behaviors, their daily points or whatever that is, and being able to see like you've been earning twos consistently, you've been earning this number consistently, like helps me more or less know, do we need to continue working on this skill? Because we're almost there, we've got it, we're at a one out of two, or we're at a two out of two, and it's the dude, you're doing great like this. You've been doing great for however much this data reflects that you've been doing this for, and consistently getting these scores.

Yeah, I appreciate that you're bringing in, check-in, check-out to this because I think some people just view that as data, not something that's actually showing students. Are those skills sticking? Are they continuing to show up in those ways? And I'm thinking even in how we leverage check-in check-out, where it typically will start with someone like you initiating that data collection and helping staff see like what counts and what doesn't count, and how that check-in check even the connect aspect, how that whole process works, and helping the student to understand that.

But then you're transitioning that to staff, which is an aspect of like you're generalizing that skill, but you're also then helping the staff to see if the student can maintain the skills when you're no longer the one giving them the feedback. Now that the staff member is giving the feedback, and then let's say that paraprofessional then is taking them into other classrooms, and then that support starts fading back. So now it's the gen ed teacher who's providing that feedback. And again, like, can the student maintain even though that paraprofessional, that local level has really faded back?

And then we've even got students who are rating themselves. So they're just like, they're noting their points and then asking that teacher to say, like, ‘hey, did I? Do we agree? Did I rate myself the way you would rate me, too?’ And oh my goodness, like, there is, I don't think, any stronger form of maintaining a skill, but to perform it consistently through all of these fading of supports and then to be able to accurately identify, like, how I showed up with those skills, I mean, that's amazing.

Yeah. Like, one of my favorite questions to ask a kiddo as they're going through the day is, you know, maybe I'll do it a couple weeks after I've started my fade out. And they've shown consistently higher scores across, like, ‘hey, how are we doing today?’ ‘Great. I was able to use this here, and this here.’ When this time ended and when the staff assigned them their score, gave them the feedback, talked the student through it, it's like, ‘yeah, and X staff was able to see where I maybe didn't reach the goal. But here's what we're going to work on.’ And the staff and the student have already come up with how to achieve that next point.

I think even using check-in check-out, you can see the generalization. Like, there have been times where we have started teaching a skill in one block of the day, and then we're kind of watching, does that data trickle out from just that block of the day? Like, I'm thinking of students who are maybe part-time in one placement and part-time in another placement. And, in that more intensive placement, we're leaning in on that direct social skills instruction and really like helping them build those skills. But we're taking data on those skills across their entire day to then see, okay, now the data is starting to show up in that more intensive placement. And then it just sort of naturally starts showing up in those locations that are outside of that more intensive program. I mean, that's really beautiful generalization data.

And then if it sticks, that trend continues over time. Well, then, now we know we're maintaining it, and we can maybe get to the point where we can swap that skill for another skill and really go with it from there. But yeah, the check-in, check-out sheet can show not only that they are maintaining those skills, as staff or support or environments are kind of fading, shifting for them. But can they actually generalize that? You can catch that in the data, even as a precursor, before you start looking at fading some of those supports, too.

So yeah, thank you for bringing forward the check-in, check-out side of this. I had not thought about how that's just such a clear data-based piece on identifying when generalization is happening and if when maintaining those skills is really happening because it's such a clear data-based way of understanding what's really going on with the student across their day and across a bunch of different staff. So thank you for that.

One of my favorite data-driven forms of how we're accomplishing the goal we set out to do.

Of course. So thank you so much for sharing your words of wisdom with us around everything that has to do with generalization and maintenance, because I know so often that is how you're leveraged with our teams is to get in, help those students grow those skills as quickly as possible, and then utilize them with other staff and back yourself out as fast as possible. So thank you so much for sharing how it is that you make that happen.

Yeah. See you next time.

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If it sticks, that trend continues over time. Well, then now we know, now we know we're maintaining it, and we can maybe get to the point where we can swap out, you know, swap that skill for another skill and really go with it from there.

Heather Volchko

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Generalization and maintenance of newly acquired skills are ongoing challenges for students with additional needs, 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 additional needs 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 encourage 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 additional needs. 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 additional needs.


According to established guidelines for data-informed practices, the studies supporting these techniques meet the rigorous criteria for researched-backed 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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