Stimulus Control and Generalization. In: Digennaro Reed FD, Reed DD, editors. Autism Service Delivery. New York: Springer; 2015. pp. 25-74. [DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4939-2656-5_2]

Comparing Matrix-Training Procedures with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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 can emerge from a history of matrix training, which involves carefully selecting and arranging stimuli and responses along at least two axes and training a subset of responses. With three children with autism spectrum disorder, we compared recombinative generalization of object-action or feature-object tacts when the component stimuli were trained before combination stimuli, trained along with combination stimuli, or untrained (i.e., combination only). For two participants, training the components along with some combinations led to the most untrained targets acquired without direct teaching. For the other participant, training the combinations only led to the greatest proportion of untrained targets acquired without direct teaching. We discuss stimulus control promoted by each teaching arrangement and suggestions for future research on recombinative generalization.

Replicating stimulus-presentation orders in discrimination training

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are taught conditional discriminations often during early intervention. Auditory-visual conditional discrimination (AVCD) training requires the presentation of multiple antecedent stimuli, and the order of stimulus presentation varies in the literature. This series of studies replicated previous literature on stimulus-presentation order in AVCD training. In Experiment 1, we compared sample-first and comparisons-first arrangements in 8 comparisons with 4 participants with ASD. For 3 participants, both presentations were efficacious. For 1 participant, the sample-first order was more likely to be efficacious. In Experiment 2, we added a sample-first-with-repetition arrangement and conducted 6 comparisons with 5 participants with ASD. Across comparisons, all 3 presentations were efficacious. Considerations for teaching AVCD to children with ASD and suggestions for further evaluation and examination of efficacy and efficiency are discussed.

Assessment to identify learner-specific prompt and prompt-fading procedures for children with autism spectrum disorder

Few studies have evaluated the use of assessment to identify the most efficient instructional practices for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. This is problematic as these individuals often have difficulty acquiring skills, and the procedures that may be efficient with one individual may not be for others. The experimenters conducted instructional assessments to identify the most efficient prompt type (model, partial physical, full physical) and prompt-fading procedure (progressive delay, most-to-least, least-to-most) for teaching auditory-visual conditional discriminations for individuals with autism spectrum disorder. Each assessment was conducted at least twice, and a final generality test combined the most and the least efficient prompt type and prompt-fading procedure for teaching novel auditory-visual conditional discriminations. The results demonstrated learner-specific outcomes for the prompt type assessment, whereas the least-to-most prompt fading procedure was most efficient for all participants.