Utilizing PEAK Relational Training System to Teach Visual, Gustatory, and Auditory Relations to Adults with Developmental Disabilities.

Two multiple baseline designs were conducted across participants to determine if the promoting the emergence of advanced knowledge (PEAK) equivalence module was an effective tool in teaching adults with autism relationships between stimuli. More specifically, a transitivity program utilizing the gustatory sensory modality was implemented. Stimuli were selected and probed initially preceding the training. First, gustatory stimuli to a visual picture were trained. Then, a visual picture to a spoken word was trained. Finally, once mastery criterion was reached, each participant's responding was tested to determine whether there were derived relations following training. Results showed that all three participants reached mastery criterion in training sessions and were able to derive new relations without direct training.

An Internal and Critical Review of the PEAK Relational Training System for Children with Autism and Related Intellectual Disabilities: 2014-2017.

The PEAK Relational Training System was designed as an assessment instrument and treatment protocol for addressing language and cognitive deficits in children with autism. PEAK contains four comprehensive training modules: Direct Training and Generalization emphasize a contingency-based framework of language development, and Equivalence and Transformation emphasize an approach to language development consistent with Relational Frame Theory. The present paper provides a comprehensive and critical review of peer-reviewed publications based on the entirety PEAK system through April, 2017. We describe both psychometric and outcome research, and indicate both positive features and limitations of this body of work. Finally, we note several research and practice questions that remain to be answered with the PEAK curriculum as well as other many other autism assessment and treatment protocols that are rooted within the framework of applied behavior analysis.

Teaching Complex Verbal Operants with the PEAK Relational Training System.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of five packaged protocols from the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge (PEAK) curriculum. The skills targeted in the study included complex verbal operants proposed by Skinner (Verbal behavior. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1957), an area that is lacking in the current literature. The target skills included autoclitics, metonymical tacts, tacting planet names, and guessing. The results suggest that the PEAK methodology was effective in teaching each of the targeted skills to a mastery criterion, as well as maintenance of those skills at a 2-week follow-up phase.