ABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of equivalence-based instruction (EBI) on learning to play individual notes and simple songs on the piano. Participants were 4 typically developing children and 4 children with a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). They were exposed to a series of auditory-visual matching-to-sample procedures using musical stimuli. Following training, participants were tested on the emergence of novel untrained relations and generalization in the form of playing two songs on a keyboard. Results suggest that the EBI was effective in teaching piano playing skills with both typically developing children and children with ASD. The success of this procedure is indicative of the wide-ranging applications of EBI to novel and creative domains.
Subject(s)
Autism Spectrum Disorder/psychology , Learning , Music/psychology , Teaching , Child , Female , Generalization, Psychological , Humans , MaleABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of equivalence-based instruction (EBI) on the emergence of basic music reading and piano playing skills. Six female college students learned to identify three musical chord notations given their respective dictated names. Participants also learned to play chords on the piano following the dictated name of the chord, and to play the chords to a song on a keyboard. Results are consistent with past research, in that stimuli became substitutable for each other and acquired a common behavioral function. Data suggest that EBI was an effective and efficient procedure to teach adults to read musical notation, as well as play chords and a song on a piano keyboard.
