Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have difficulty acquiring intraverbal behavior. The present study compared manipulations of stimulus salience (i.e., volume increase, elongation) to teach intraverbals (e.g., "You drink [juice]" and "You drink from [cup]") to three participants diagnosed with ASD whose…

Previous research has demonstrated that the conditional-only method (starting with a multiple-stimulus array) is more efficient than the simple-conditional method (progressive incorporation of more stimuli into the array) for teaching receptive labeling to children with autism spectrum disorders (Grow, Carr, Kodak, Jostad, & Kisamore, 2011).…

Prior research indicates that the relative effectiveness of different error-correction procedures may be idiosyncratic across learners, suggesting the potential benefit of an individualized assessment prior to teaching. In this study, we evaluated the reliability and utility of a rapid error-correction assessment to identify the least intrusive,…

Children with autism may struggle in developing conditional discrimination repertoires. Saunders and Spradlin (1989, 1990, 1993) arranged "blocked" teaching trials in which they presented the same sample stimulus repeatedly across trials (in lieu of randomly alternating targets across trials) and then faded the number of trials in each block. We…

In recent years, operant discrimination training procedures have been used to teach giant African pouched rats to detect tuberculosis (TB) in human sputum samples. This article summarizes how the rats are trained and used operationally, as well as their performance in studies published to date. Available data suggest that pouched rats, which can…

Learning styles in capuchin monkeys were assessed with a computerized reversal-learning task called the mediational paradigm. First, monkeys were trained to respond with 90% accuracy on a two-choice discrimination (A+B-). Then the authors examined differences in performance on three different types of reversal trials (A-B+, A-C+, B+C-), each of…

The study investigated the influence of a response delay requirement on the discrimination performance of three autistic adolescents. Results showed that the response delay condition produced higher levels of correct responding than the no reponse delay condition. Teachers rated the response delay procedure practical and effective in a classroom…

The paper reviews research on the choice discrimination program, a method of teaching receptive language to severely handicapped children. The writer's own work using this method is compared to previous research, and he suggests that the approach may be useful with other groups. (CL)

Six nonverbal, autistic boys (ages 6 to 11) were studied to assess what was learned when signs and spoken words were presented simultaneously. The boys were taught to discriminate among several available objects when given commands consisting of simultaneously signed and spoken object labels. Each of the six children mastered all of the…

Compared two teaching strategies, delayed-prompting and fading, for teaching the most easily confused letters and numbers to preschoolers (N=39). The results indicated that children who received discrimination training using delayed prompting made fewer errors on the posttests for the letters and numbers mastered than did children taught via…

Efficiency was compared between three procedures for sequencing examples with minimal stimulus variation between adjacent positive and negative examples: dynamic, static, and static with maximal differences between pairs. For young children, increasing relevant feature saliency and altering a single stimulus to generate examples reduced training…

Two studies compared the effectiveness of two procedures (multiple examples across trials and within trials) in teaching 10 students (ages 10-20) with moderate disabilities functional word discriminations. The first procedure was superior in acquisition; the latter procedure, however, was better under generalization for most participants.…

The study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of concurrent and isolation-intermix instruction in teaching four preschool children to read common words in their environment. Concurrent instruction resulted in students learning conditional discriminations in fewer trials and minutes of instructional time suggesting the value of teaching…

Four studies compared static versus dynamic presentations of examples and nonexaples of the concepts "diagonal" and "conves," with nonhandicapped preschoolers, mildly handicapped primary students, and severely handicapped adults. Ss taught with a dynamic presentation learned the discrimination in significantly fewer trials, with performance either…

Five preschool children at risk for mental retardation were taught to choose an odd stimulus which varied in one important dimension (e.g., form, color, or size) from other stimuli in a set. Oddity responding was shown to transfer across stimulus types, and learning was maintained for a minimum of six weeks. (Author/JW)