Establishing Derived Textual Activity Schedules in Children With Autism

Abstract

Children with autism are frequently taught to follow picture activity schedules to increase independence in task engagement and transitions. As textual behavior allows for greater independence and efficiency in responding, schedules should rapidly become textual in form. Previous research has shown the effectiveness of conditional discrimination training and superimposition and fading procedures in establishing textual control. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of these procedures in establishing derived textual control in activity schedules. Participants included two children with autism (ages 3 and 8 years). Following the demonstration of proficiency in picture activity schedules, participants were exposed to superimposition and fading and conditional discrimination training in an alternating treatments design. Pretest-posttest measures were used to evaluate emergent relations among stimuli. Conditional discrimination training was superior to stimulus fading for emergent relations. The participants showed no clear difference between the procedures related to derived textual control.

Equivalence‐based instruction to establish a textual activity schedule in an adult with Down syndrome

“…Future research should also seek to replicate these findings with a larger number of participants in order to increase practitioner confidence in applying this intervention with clients. Between the current study and the studies by Miguel et al () and Sprinkle and Miguel (), transfer of function within an activity schedule has been replicated across five participants. Horner et al () recommend an intervention be replicated across at least 20 participants and by three different researchers in order for it to be considered an evidence‐based practice.…”

“…Activity schedules are often composed of pictures that serve as discriminative stimuli to occasion the response needed to complete a task. For some individuals, the pictures in their activity schedules are later replaced with text stimuli as this more closely resembles schedules commonly used by typically developing individuals (McClannahan & Krantz, ) and may make the use of a schedule less stigmatizing for the learner in social settings (Sprinkle & Miguel, ). Superimposition and fading is often used to transfer discriminative control from pictures to text (McClannahan & Krantz, ); however, equivalence‐based instruction has also been shown to be effective in transferring stimulus control from pictures to text stimuli (Miguel et al, ; Sprinkle & Miguel, ).…”

“…The child will also demonstrate emergent performance by reversing the directly trained relations and emitting the word cat when shown the picture of the cat or the printed word CAT. A number of studies have been conducted that show support for the use of equivalence‐based instruction with children with autism (e.g., Groskreutz, Karsina, Miguel, & Groskreutz, ; Keintz, Miguel, Kao, & Finn, ), and this instructional method has been shown to be effective in promoting the transfer of stimulus control from pictures to text stimuli in activity schedules (Miguel et al, ; Sprinkle & Miguel, ).…”

The importance of multiple exemplar instruction in the establishment of novel verbal behavior

“…Most notably, these studies show that the prerequisite skills required for BiN (i.e., listener behavior, echoics, and tacts) can be taught to children with even very limited vocal–verbal repertoires, and that a subsequent programmed history of MEI can lead to the development of this critical cusp (Bosch & Fuqua, ; Rosales‐Ruiz & Baer, ). These findings have important implications for intervention programs teaching language, as BiN has been posited as a necessary prerequisite for the acquisition of additional language, as well as a foundational building block for the subsequent development of more complex skills, such as categorization, problem‐solving, and analogical reasoning (Carp & Petursdottir, ; Jennings & Miguel, ; Kobari‐Wright & Miguel, ; Lee, Miguel, Darcey, & Jennings, ; Lowe, Horne, & Hughes, ; Ma, Miguel, & Jennings, ; Miguel et al, ; Miguel & Kobari‐Wright, ; Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, ; Sprinkle & Miguel, ).…”

The current status of the experimental analysis of verbal behavior.

“…Michael (1982) proposed the umbrella terms duplic and codic to describe classes of such relations; the former referring to relations in which the response product bears physical similarity to the response (e.g., the echoic; copying a text) and the latter referring to those in which such similarity is absent but parts of the stimulus nevertheless correspond to parts of the response product. Eighteen studies (5%) had a primary focus on the acquisition of duplic or codic repertoires, or on control by textual stimuli over listener behavior (e.g., Sprinkle & Miguel, 2013). The specific topics of these studies were quite diverse and will not be discussed here.…”