The efficacy and efficiency of instruction may be reduced as a result of persistent response patterns to targets. The current project exposed participants to tact training with one set of targets. Thereafter, the efficacy and efficiency of teaching different responses to the previously trained set of targets was compared to tact training with a…

Recombinative generalization is the production of responses in the presence of novel combinations of known components. For example, after learning "red triangle" and "blue square," recombinative generalization is observed when a child can tact "red square" and "blue triangle." Recombinative generalization…

Mastery criteria can be applied to individual targets or stimuli organized into sets. Wong et al. (2021) and Wong and Fienup (2022) found that participants who received special education services learned sight words more rapidly when an individual target mastery criterion was applied. The current study replicated and extended these findings across…

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…

Previous studies on skill acquisition have taught targets in stimulus sets composed of different numbers of stimuli. Although the rationale for selection of a stimulus set size is not clear, the number of target stimuli trained within a set is a treatment decision for which there is limited empirical support. The current investigation compared the…

Auditory-visual conditional discrimination training (e.g., receptive identification training, listener responses; AVCD) is ubiquitous in early intervention and special education programs. Nevertheless, some learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) do not appear to benefit from this training despite use of empirically validated treatments. To…

The current study extends the literature on task interspersal (TI) by comparing the effects of four different TI ratios on the efficiency of skill acquisition and on levels of problem behavior in children with autism spectrum disorder and related disorders. The four ratios of TI were 3:1, 1:1, 1:3, and 0:1 mastered-to-acquisition tasks. An adapted…

Generalization is a critical outcome for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who display new skills in a limited range of contexts. In the absence of proper planning, generalization may not be observed. The purpose of the current study was to directly compare serial to concurrent multiple exemplar training using total training time per…

We examined the effects of reinforcement magnitude on skill acquisition during discrete-trial training. After conducting a magnitude preference assessment, we compared acquisition during conditions with large and small magnitudes of edible reinforcement to a praise-only condition. Although all participants showed a preference for the…

The present investigation compared acquisition of intraverbals and listener behavior by function, feature, and class (FFC) for two children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We also measured tacts during listener training to evaluate whether higher levels of tacts predicted the emergence of intraverbal behavior following training. The results…

The current investigation evaluated repertoires that may be related to performance on auditory-to-visual conditional discrimination training with 9 students who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The skills included in the assessment were matching, imitation, scanning, an auditory discrimination, and a visual discrimination. The…