The behavior chain interruption strategy: Generalization to out-of-routine contexts

The behavior chain interruption strategy (BCIS) was used to teach 4 students with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and severe communication disorders the skill of requesting. The BCIS involved inserting a planned interruption into an existing class routine and providing instruction at this point. All students learned to request within a routine using graphic symbols and generalized these requesting skills to 2 untaught routines. Most significantly, all students generalized requesting to out-of-routine contexts involving requests in the absence of the predictable sequence of events that usually occasioned the communication. Requesting was maintained for up to 18 weeks after intervention.