Acquisition of Arbitrary Conditional Discriminations by Young Normally Developing Children

Abstract

Three experiments investigated conditions designed to facilitate acquisition of arbitrary conditional discriminations in 3- to 6-year-old normally developing children. In Experiment 1, 6 subjects failed to master the arbitrary match-to-sample task under conditions of differential reinforcement alone, but 7 subjects did so when instructions or instructions and sample naming were added. In Experiment 2, sample naming introduced in a blocked-trial arrangement resulted in acquisition, but only when the sample name was a nonsense syllable provided by the experimenter (5 of 7 subjects) and not when the sample name was generated by the subject (0 of 5 subjects). Experiment 3 demonstrated the effectiveness of a training sequence involving thematically related stimuli as an intermediate step facilitating the transition from identity to novel arbitrary relations. The difficulties in mastering arbitrary conditional discriminations shown here imply that further analyses with young children will be particularly important in efforts to investigate the development of theoretically important stimulus relations.

Stimulus pairing training in children with autism spectrum disorder

“…However, many studies have revealed that people with developmental disabilities or young children with typical development find it difficult to learn some stimulus relations through standard MTS tasks (e.g., Saunders & Spradlin, 1989;Pilgrim, Jackson, & Galizio, 2000;Doughty & Saunders, 2009). Thus, in an applied setting, there is a need to determine the variables that encourage the learning of stimulus relations in MTS tasks and develop procedures other than MTS tasks to enable individuals to learn the relations among stimuli more efficiently and effectively.…”

Condições experimentais facilitadoras para a aprendizagem de discriminação por bebês

“…Especifi camente em relação à população de bebês, algumas das principais difi culdades relatadas nas pesquisas sobre equivalência podem ser somadas às difi culdades enfrentadas para a realização de outras investigações experimentais com bebês (Gil & Oliveira, 2003;Gil, Oliveira, Sousa & Faleiros, 2006;Pilgrim, Jackson & Galizio, 2000;Wilkinson & McIlvane, 2001).…”

“…A literatura tem ressaltado que os resultados ainda são incipientes a respeito dos parâmetros necessários para investigar tais fenômenos na referida população (Gil & Oliveira, 2003;Gil, Oliveira, Sousa & Faleiros, 2006;O'Donnell & Saunders, 2003;Pilgrim, Jackson & Galizio, 2000;Wilkinson & McIlvane, 2001).…”

“…Desde então, os estudos com bebês têm recebido atenção especial pela possibilidade de se obter maior controle das variáveis que infl uenciam o desempenho de humanos em ambientes planejados (Novak, 1996;Schlinger, 1995;Weiner, 1983). Alguns trabalhos ressaltaram as vantagens das investigações realizadas com crianças jovens, dentre elas a possibilidade de minimizar os efeitos de variáveis como: a história de reforçamento anterior ao ambiente experimental e o uso da linguagem, incluindo os problemas subseqüentes que essa habilidade coloca para um controle mais rigoroso de variáveis experimentais (Pilgrim, Jackson & Galizio, 2000;Wilkinson & McIlvane, 2001).…”

Nonautomated Procedures in Derived Stimulus Relations Research: A Methodological Note

“…Finally, the experimenter should treat subjects with courtesy and convey gratitude for the individual's participation (Pilgrim, 1998). Pilgrim , Jackson , and Galizio (2000) reported the use of a nonautomated procedure to assess the acquisition of conditional discriminations in 3-to 6-year-old typically developing children. Experimental sessions were conducted at the children's preschool or after-school program.…”