A portion of children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have difficulty acquiring conditional discrimination. However, previous researchers suggested that the discrimination of nonverbal auditory stimuli may be acquired more efficiently (Eikeseth & Hayward, 2009; Uwer, et al., 2002). For example, a child may learn to touch a…

Receptive identification is usually taught in matching-to-sample format, which entails the presentation of an auditory sample stimulus and several visual comparison stimuli in each trial. Conflicting recommendations exist regarding the order of stimulus presentation in matching-to-sample trials. The purpose of this study was to compare acquisition…

Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display stimulus overselectivity, wherein a subset of relevant components in a compound stimulus controls responding, which impairs discrimination learning. The original experimental research on stimulus overselectivity in ASD was conducted several decades ago; however, interventions for…

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).…

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate derived manding skills in 2 adults with severe developmental disabilities and language deficits by contriving transitive conditioned establishing operations. Specifically, we evaluated whether a history of reinforced conditional discrimination learning would ultimately result in a derived mand…

Acquisition of verbal behavior is a major goal of interventions for children with developmental disabilities. We evaluated the effectiveness of manipulation of an establishing operation for functional discriminated mands. Four individuals with developmental disabilities participated in a training procedure designed to teach two separate mands for…

The study compared the effectiveness of a traditional training procedure (least-to-most restrictive prompt sequence) and a prescriptive training procedure (utilizing ongoing behavioral assessment data to identify discriminative stimuli) with four severely/multiply handicapped students (ages 11-19). Results indicated both procedures were effective…