Association for Behavior Analysis International

There is a need for efficient braille training methods for instructors of the visually impaired. This study evaluated the use of a computer-based program intended to train the relation of braille characters to English letters using a matching-to-sample procedure with 80 sighted college students. Participants mastered matching visual depictions of the braille alphabet to their text counterparts with an average of 99% accuracy and demonstrated improvements in braille reading ability following an average of only 24 minutes of training. Follow-up sessions showed adequate maintenance of the letter matching skill at 7–14 days. In addition, the study conducted a direct comparison of multiple-choice vs. constructive responding to assess differences in skill acquisition and maintenance.

It was suggested that the formation of a stimulus class may emerge through indirect teaching (Stomer, MacKay, & Remington, 1996). Instructor feedback is an indirect teaching procedure involving the presentation of an additional, nontarget stimulus to the consequence event of a discrete trial. In this study, investigators evaluated the effects of instructor feedback of the category name to which a stimulus belongs on the emergence of derived categorical relations in children diagnosed with autism. Using a multiple probe design across category sets, investigators directly taught the identification of a stimulus using stimuli from various categories. In addition to direct teaching, investigators presented instructor feedback as part of the response consequence) during each discrete-trial. Following direct teaching, investigators tested the emergence of expressive and receptive identification of the category as well as category matching under baseline conditions. The data show that participants demonstrated the emergence of categorical relations, however, some relations were more susceptible to extinction effects and required the addition of direct reinforcement to maintain responding. The implications of these results will be discussed further during the presentation.

Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of relational frame theory protocols in establishing repertoires of relational responding (see Barnes-Homles, Barnes-Holmes, Smeets, Strand, & Friman, 2004). A majority of the applied studies on derived stimulus relations have examined frames of coordination, or sameness; however, many educational standards require learners to respond to relations of comparison, opposition, and distinction (Rehfeldt, 2001). The current study evaluated the effects of an intensive multiple exemplar instruction intervention on establishing frames of comparison with academically-at-risk 5–7 year-olds living in a rural impoverished region of the Midwest. Specifically, a match-to-sample protocol was used to establish frames of coordination between holidays and months. Following coordination training a match-to-sample protocol was used to establish frames of comparison (before and after) using the holiday stimuli. Preliminary data indicate that multiple exemplar instruction may not be necessary for all of the participants in this target population for facilitating the emergence of derived coordination and comparison relations.