Five adolescents with autism, 5 control participants, and 4 child controls received rewards for varying their sequences of responses while playing a computer game. In preceding and following phases, rewards were provided at approximately the same rate but were independent of variability. When reinforced, variability increased significantly in all…

This article provides a selective review and integration of the behavioral literature on Pavlovian extinction. The first part reviews evidence that extinction does not destroy the original learning, but instead generates new learning that is especially context-dependent. The second part examines insights provided by research on several related…

Five children with autism and mental retardation learned to discriminate objects in response to spoken names or to match amounts to numbers with a combined blocking procedure. The procedure involved presenting the same spoken word until 10 consecutive correct responses occurred and keeping the left-right location of objects constant. (Contains…