Comparing Skill Acquisition Under Different Stimulus Set Sizes With Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Replication

Systematic review of acquisition mastery criteria and statistical analysis of associations with response maintenance and generalization

“…To understand the effectiveness of teaching tactics, behavior analysts have studied how various antecedent and consequence manipulations affect the acquisition of new behavior (Cariveau & La Cruz Montilla, 2021; Carroll et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2017). More recently, researchers have examined structural components of the instructional context, such as how teaching trials are distributed over time (Haq et al., 2015; Haq & Kodak, 2015), the progression of skill acquisition across teaching phases (Grow & Van Der Hijde, 2017), or how many individual responses should be taught at once (Kodak et al., 2020; Vladescu et al., 2020). Indeed, the outcomes of such studies can be used to assess instructional components and tailor instruction to individual learners (Kodak & Halbur, 2021).…”

A Comparison of Stimulus Set Sizes: Systematic Replication with Operant Analysis Acquisition Criteria

“… We conducted a systematic replication of Kodak et al’s Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 53 (1), 265–283 ( 2020 ) and Vladescu et al’s Behavior Analysis in Practice, 14 (1), 193–197 ( 2021 ) experiments on the effects of stimulus set sizes on skill acquisition. The researchers manipulated the stimulus set sizes by teaching 3, 6, and 12 sight words simultaneously during learn unit instruction.…”

“…Several curricular manuals for children with disabilities recommended including at least three targets in a stimulus set when learning listener and speaker responses to decrease the probability of the establishment of faulty stimulus control (Greer & Ross, 2008 ; Greer et al, 2020 ; Grow & LeBlanc, 2013 ; LaMarca & LaMarca, 2018 ; MacDonald & Langer, 2018 ). However, few researchers have compared the effects of stimulus set size on skill acquisition (Kodak et al, 2020 ; Vladescu et al, 2021 ) and research on this variable is important as this variable is included in all skill acquisition studies, regardless of whether one attends to this fact.…”

“…For example, participants needed to emit eight consecutive independent correct responses per stimulus to meet criterion in the set-size-three condition (to respond with 100% accuracy across two consecutive sessions), whereas they needed to emit two consecutive independent correct responses per stimulus in the set-size-12 condition. Thus, the number of independent correct responses required to meet the criterion decreased as the stimulus set size increased (Vladescu et al, 2021 ). In addition, because the researchers did not control the number of presentations per stimulus in each session, the results might be due to the unnecessary trials for the smaller set sizes and in turn failed to provide an accurate measurement on the effectiveness of different stimulus sizes.…”

“…Vladescu et al ( 2021 ) conducted a systematic replication of Kodak et al ( 2020 ) with two adolescents with ASD and extended the literature by controlling the number of independent correct responses required to meet criterion across the set-size-3, -6, and -12 conditions during tact training. In other words, the acquisition criterion was condition-specific according to the difference in the number of presentations per stimulus in an instructional session across the three conditions.…”