Generalization between receptive and expressive language in young children with autism

Abstract

Generalization between expressive and receptive language was studied in six boys with autism (chronological age 47-76 months, language age 13-42 months). Each participant received training on three or four word pairs (e.g. hot/cold). Half the pairs were taught expressively and then receptively; the other half were taught in the reverse order. Data were obtained on generalization from the trained to untrained modality, generalization errors, and between-and within-subject differences. Across participants, the 'expressive first' condition led to cross-modal generalization more often than the 'receptive first' condition. However, one child displayed the opposite pattern, and three other children's patterns varied across training stimuli. Error analyses indicated that, when children failed to demonstrate receptive-to-expressive generalization, they did generalize in another manner: responding based on physical resemblance between cues used in the study and those used in previous training. The results suggest ways to individualize instruction and better understand cross-modal generalization.

A Rose by Naming: How We May Learn How to Do It

“…For two decades, behavior analysts have studied the potential of Naming with respect to how it may or may not facilitate certain emergent categorization (Arntzen, 2004;Clayton & Hayes, 1999;Dugdale & Lowe, 1990;Fields et al, 2003;Guess & Baer, 1973;Hayes, 1989;Hayes, Barnes-Holmes, & Roche, 2001;Horne et al, 2004Horne et al, , 2006Keller & Bucher, 1979;Lee, 1981;Lowe & Beasty, 1987;Miguel & Petursdottir, 2009;Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, 2008;Randell & Remington, 2006;Shusterman & Kastak, 1993;Sidman, 1986Sidman, , 1992Smeets & Striefel, 1976;Stone, Miguel, & Gould, 2006;Stromer & McKay, 1996;Wynn & Smith, 2003;Zentall, Galizio, & Critchfield, 2002). See Miguel and Petursdottir for a comprehensive review of that literature.…”

An Abbreviated Evaluation of the Efficiency of Listener and Tact Instruction for Children with Autism

“…First, for one participant in the Wynn and Smith (2003) study, listener training appeared to produce more emergent relations than tact training. For three other participants, listener training did produce emergent relations, though less consistently than tact training.…”

“…Several recent experimental studies have specifically compared tact and listener training with participants with ASD (Wynn & Smith, 2003;Sprinkle & Miguel, 2012;Delfs, Conine, Frampton, Shillingsburg, & Robinson, 2014). Across studies, sets of stimuli were randomly assigned to either tact or listener training and probes were conducted to evaluate the emergence of the untrained responses.…”

Establishing Mand Emergence: The Effects of Three Training Procedures and Modified Antecedent Conditions

“…Studies have shown that training a response as a listener does not readily result in the emergence of that response as a speaker (guess & Baer, 1973;Keller & Bucher, 1979;Lamarre & Holland, 1985;Wynn & Smith, 2003), but results also indicate that there are individual differences in the effects of listener training on speaker responses (Wynn & Smith, 2003). The current study therefore attempted to evaluate the differential effects of listener training, tact training, and a combination of listener and tact training on mand emergence.…”