Efficiency of expressive and receptive language teaching in children with autism spectrum disorder

Research in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) investigated the efficiency of receptive and expressive language interventions in learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Listener responding by function, feature and class (LRFFC) and intraverbal (FFC) are some types of receptive and expressive language, respectively, which were targets in investigations. The previous literature demonstrated experimentally that teaching intraverbal first is more efficient, in the sense that it produced a better emergence effect of related untaught LRFFC in children with ASD, contrary to the recommendation by a traditional literature, which suggests that receptive skills, such as the LRFFC, should be taught first. The current research had the goal to compare the efficiency of intraverbal and LRFFC training as well, considering the effects on the possible emergence of related untaught repertoire in two children with ASD. The difference from the previous literature was that, during the teaching of LRFFC responses, the tact (labeling) of pictures involved was also taught, considering that this was a recommendation of previous research. The purpose was to assess if tact training would increase the efficiency of LRFFC training. The results showed that both instructional sequences (training LRFFC - probing intraverbal; training intraverbal - probing LRFFC) successfully established emergent responding, regarding the untaught related repertoire for both participants. However, intraverbal training produced emergence of LRFFC to a lesser extent for both. Data were discussed in the sense that tact training during LRFFC training probably increased its efficiency and that preexisting skills, regarding each participant, also influenced the efficiency of teaching.

Evaluating the use of programmed reinforcement in a correction procedure with children diagnosed with autism

Background Procedures that reduce errors while learning a repertoire play an important role in Applied Behavior Analysis for people with autism due to the detrimental effects that excessive exposure to error may have on learning. Previous studies have investigated the effects of correction procedures that require active student response after a trial with error. Some intervention manuals recommend against reinforcing responses after correction to prevent the establishment of prompt dependence. This study directly investigated the effect of reinforcement after an active-response correction procedure during tact training in four children with autism. An echoic-to-tact training procedure was used to train tacts. A “no reinforcement after correction” (NRC) condition was compared to a “reinforcement after correction” (RC) condition, using an adapted alternated treatments design. Results All participants needed less correction trials in RC than in NRC, and considering all 26 sessions in which both training procedures were implemented, participants’ performance was higher with RC than without in 17 sessions and was the same in 3 sessions. Conclusions We discuss the effectiveness of reinforcing correct responding after an active-response correction procedure, the absence of prompt dependence, and the implications of better correction procedures for applied settings.