Facilitating two word utterances in two Down's syndrome boys

Two young Down's syndrome boys, equated developmentally, were selected as subjects in a design involving both between and within subject control procedures with the aim of demonstrating that early two word utterances of the pivot open type could be taught to mentally retarded children. After both the children had been taught the appropriate 10 nouns and one participle, the experimental child was trained to structure pivot open utterances with 5 of the original 10 nouns plus the pivot 'gone' in a play situation. The control child's treatment paralleled that of the experimental child except that no pivot open models were provided. When criterion level was reached for the experimental child, using the first 5 nouns, he was exposed to the second 5 nouns. Generalization of the learned structure to these 5 nouns then occurred. The control child was then switched to the experimental condition, whereupon he learned to imitate, produce, and generalize the pivot open construction.