ABSTRACT
Despite its advantages, discrete-trial instruction (DTI) has been criticized for producing rote responding. Although there is little research supporting this claim, if true, this may be problematic given the propensity of children with autism to engage in restricted and repetitive behavior. One feature that is common in DTI that may contribute to rote responding is the prompting and reinforcement of one correct response per discriminative stimulus. To evaluate the potential negative effects of rote prompts on varied responding, we compared the effects of modeling rote versus varied target responses during the teaching of intraverbal categorization. We also evaluated the effects of these procedures on the efficiency of acquisition of any one correct response. For all four children, any increase in varied responding was fleeting, and for two participants, acquisition was slower in the variable-modeling condition.
Subject(s)
Autism Spectrum Disorder/therapy , Behavior Therapy/methods , Education of Intellectually Disabled/methods , Child , Child, Preschool , Humans , Male , Reinforcement, PsychologyABSTRACT
We assessed the emergence of visual-visual conditional discriminations following training of vocal tact and intraverbal relations. Ten preschool-age children learned to vocally tact six visual stimuli, A1 through B3. Next, they learned to respond intraverbally to the dictated names of A1, A2, and A3 by vocalizing the names of B1, B2, and B3, respectively. Emergent A-B and B-A relations were tested in a visual-visual match-to-sample (MTS) task. Five of ten participants passed the test, with or without a prompt to tact the sample stimulus. Four of the five failed a reverse intraverbal test that involved responding to dictated names of B stimuli by vocalizing names of A stimuli. The remaining participants failed the MTS test, apparently due to failures to maintain the trained vocal responses throughout testing. Accurate MTS performance in the absence of bidirectional intraverbal relations appears to contradict Horne and Lowe's (1996) analysis of the possible role of intraverbal naming in emergent stimulus control.
Subject(s)
Discrimination Learning , Child, Preschool , Conditioning, Psychological , Discrimination Learning/physiology , Discrimination, Psychological/physiology , Female , Humans , Male , Photic Stimulation , Visual PerceptionABSTRACT
We examined whether the results of a response-restriction analysis (RRA) could be predicted on the basis of response distribution in early sessions, when these sessions indicated interaction with multiple items. Four preschool-aged children participated. For 3 of the 4 participants, the results from sessions conducted prior to restriction of the first item corresponded closely with results of the full RRA.
Subject(s)
Choice Behavior/physiology , Developmental Disabilities/psychology , Inhibition, Psychological , Interpersonal Relations , Psychometrics , Child, Preschool , Female , Humans , Male , Outcome Assessment, Health Care , Predictive Value of Tests , Psychomotor PerformanceABSTRACT
This study was a systematic replication and extension of Fisher, Kodak, and Moore (2007), in which a picture prompt embedded into a least-to-most prompting sequence facilitated acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations. Participants were 4 children who had been diagnosed with autism; 2 had limited prior receptive skills, and 2 had more advanced receptive skills. We used a balanced design to compare the effects of picture prompts, pointing prompts, and either trial-and-error learning or a no-reinforcement condition. In addition, we assessed the emergence of vocal tacts for the 2 participants who had prior tact repertoires. Picture prompts enhanced acquisition for all participants, but there were no differential effects on tact emergence. The results support a generality of the effect reported by Fisher et al. and suggest that a variety of learners may benefit from the incorporation of picture prompts into auditory-visual conditional discrimination training.
Subject(s)
Auditory Perception , Autistic Disorder/psychology , Discrimination Learning , Reinforcement, Psychology , Visual Perception , Acoustic Stimulation , Child, Preschool , Cues , Female , Humans , Male , Photic StimulationABSTRACT
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) has been published since 1982, and during this time, interest in verbal behavior research appears to have increased substantially within behavior analysis. The purpose of the present analysis was to assess the influence of TAVB on the field by (a) counting citations of TAVB articles in the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior (JEAB) and the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) from 1983 through 2007, (b) examining which other journals cite TAVB, and (c) calculating impact-factor estimates for 2003 through 2007. Citations of TAVB articles began to appear in JEAB and JABA in the late 1980s to early 1990s, and by the end of 2007, almost a third of all articles published in TAVB had been cited in either JEAB or JABA. Other journals that cite TAVB include The Behavior Analyst and The Psychological Record. The estimated impact factor ranged from 0.267 to 0.600. Strategies for increasing the impact of TAVB are discussed.
