In behavior analysis, naming is defined as an integration of speaker and listener behavior. After exposure to a tact, appropriate listener behavior can occur, and vice versa, without direct training. When a child is able to learn new word-object relations from observations of others’ tacts both as speaker and listener, full naming has emerged. Naming consists of echoic, pure tact, impure tact, and listener responses. However, children with autism often fail to acquire the naming capability. The present study replicated the results of previous experiments that have emphasized the role of a multiple exemplar training that involves a rotation of the antecedents for the different response types that constitute naming. Further, the present study extended previous research by requiring the participants to echo the teacher’s tacts of the sample stimulus during matching-to-sample training, before naming probes. Consistent with the notion that a rotation of training trials across point to, pure tact, and impure tact responses produces naming skills in children with autism, the results showed improved tacting and listener behavior following such training.

The purpose of the present experiment was to evaluate which method, stimulus-stimulus pairing or operant discrimination training, establishes neutral stimuli as more effective conditioned reinforcers, and to explore ways to maintain effects of the stimuli established as conditioned reinforcers. Four rats were exposed to an operant discrimination training procedure to establish a left-situated light as a conditioned reinforcer and to a stimulusstimulus pairing procedure to establish a right-situated light as a conditioned reinforcer. Acquisition of new responses was then arranged to determine how formerly neutral stimuli could maintain responding when the unconditioned reinforcer (water) was presented intermittently in an experimental design similar to a concurrent-chain procedure. During this acquisition, two levers were concurrently available and presses on the left lever produced an operant discrimination trial (left light-response-water), whereas presses on the right lever produced a stimulus-stimulus pairing trial (right light-water). The results suggest that the operant discrimination training procedure was more effective in establishing a neutral stimulus as a conditioned reinforcer and also maintained a higher rate of responding over time.

Bidirectional naming (BiN) is the integration of speaker and listener responses, reinforced by social consequences. Unfortunately, these consequences often do not function as reinforcers for behavior in children with autism. Accordingly, the repertoire of BiN is also often limited in these children. Previous research has suggested that so-called multiple-exemplar instruction, a rotation between different speaker and listener operants, may be necessary to establish BiN. The present experiment aimed to investigate whether sequential operant instruction might also work as a successful intervention to improve BiN skills after the establishment of standard social reinforcers. Standard social reinforcers were identified and established through an operant-discrimination training procedure in 4 participating children with an autism spectrum diagnosis. In the present experiment, all participants showed increased BiN after sequential operant instruction with conditioned social reinforcers contingent on relevant operants. Two of 4 participants acquired BiN skills. Moreover, the remaining 2 participants scored within the mastery criterion on listener responses, and 1 of them also met the criterion on the tact probes. Essential characteristics of an intervention, as well as the role of the echoic in the emission of BiN, are discussed.

Stimuli with no specific biological relevance for the organism can acquire multiple functions through conditioning procedures. Conditioning procedures involving compound stimuli sometimes result in blocking, related to the phenomenon of overshadowing. This can affect the establishment of conditioned stimuli in classical conditioning and discriminative stimuli in operant conditioning. The aim of the current experiment was to investigate whether a standard blocking procedure might block the establishment of a conditioned reinforcer-in addition to blocking discriminative control by that stimulus in rats. We used successive discrimination training to establish a tone or a light as a discriminative stimulus for chain pulling, upon which an unconditioned reinforcer (water) was contingent. Next, we trained a tone-light compound stimulus the same way. Finally, we conducted two tests, one for stimulus control and one for a conditioned reinforcing effect on a new response. Little or no discriminative control was evident by the second stimulus, which was added to the previously established discriminative stimulus later during training. The subsequent test showed blocking of conditioned reinforcement in five of the seven rats. Procedures that generate blocking can have a practical impact on attempts to establish discriminative stimuli and/or conditioned reinforcers in applied settings and needs careful attention.

The present study aimed to investigate the blocking of stimulus control in three children with autism. We used a go/no-go procedure in a standard blocking paradigm. In Phase 1, we established one of two sounds or colored squares as a discriminative stimulus for touching a tablet screen. In Phase 2, a colored square was added to the sound or a sound was added to the colored square in a stimulus compound. The discrimination training continued as in Phase 1. We subsequently tested discriminative control by each of the single stimuli separately and by the compounds. Finally, after testing with no programmed consequences, we reestablished the original discrimination and replicated the test of stimulus control. The results support previous experiments by demonstrating that the establishment of discriminative control by a second stimulus by adding it to a previously established discriminative stimulus in a compound was blocked by the earlier discrimination training in all three participants. We discuss procedural details that may be critical to avoid the blocking of stimulus control in the applied field, particularly with respect to the acquisition of skills that involve multiple stimuli, such as joint attention, social referencing, and bidirectional naming.