Association for Behavior Analysis International

Although numerous instructional strategies can produce skill acquisition for children with and without developmental disabilities, these strategies do not necessarily produce similar outcomes across participants. It may be the case that certain repertoires mediate the effects of intervention, such as an echoic repertoire. The proposed symposium includes three studies that evaluated the role of echoic behavior in the acquisition of novel skills. In the first study, Anthony and colleagues evaluated the role of echoic behavior during instructive feedback. The authors attempted to prevent the occurrence of echoic behavior by requiring participants to engage in an alternative task immediately following the presentation of instructive feedback. In the second study, Zemantic and colleagues measured echoic and attending behavior during instructive feedback. Participants who did not demonstrate echoic or attending behavior did not benefit from instructive feedback, but they responded positively to intervention when they were subsequently required to engage in these behaviors. In the third study by Carp and colleagues, the authors evaluated whether requiring echoic behavior facilitated acquisition of auditory-visual conditional discriminations. This collection of studies will present data on the role of echoic behavior during skill acquisition programs and provide recommendations for future research and practice

Previous studies have evaluated the usefulness of presenting additional stimuli during learning trials. When presenting additional stimuli, responses to these stimuli are not required and if a response is provided, no feedback is given. This procedure has been associated with increases in instructional efficiency for some learners but not others. Although this approach may be an attractive option for teachers, little is known about the types of learners that are likely to benefit from this procedure. Along this line, it may be important that learners engage in an echoic response following the presentation of the additional stimulus. An echoic response may be considered a mediating response that may play a role in the learners acquisition of additional stimuli. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate a procedure aimed at blocking the occurrence of an echoic response to help determine the necessity of this response during teaching that incorporates additional stimuli. Results indicate that acquisition of the secondary targets was delayed for two of the three participants in the condition that involved attempts to block the echoic response. The discussion of results will further consider operant mechanisms and learner characteristics that could be explored in future studies.