Stimulus Control Procedure for Reducing Vocal Stereotypies in an Autistic Child

Stereotyped vocal behavior exhibited by a seven-year-old child diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and maintained by automatic reinforcement was placed under stimulus control through discrimination training. The training consisted of matching a green card (SD) with free access to vocal stereotypy and a red card (SD-absent) with interruption of stereotypy and vocal redirection. At the same time, appropriate behaviors were reinforced. After discrimination training, the child rarely engaged in vocal stereotypy in the red card condition and, to a greater extent, in the green card condition, demonstrating the ability to discriminate between the two different situations. After the training, the intervention began. Once they reached the latency criterion in the red stimulus condition, the child could have free access to vocal stereotypy (green card condition). The latency criterion for engaging in stereotypy was gradually increased during the red card condition and progressively decreased during the green card condition. The intervention follows a changing criterion design. This study indicates that stimulus discrimination training is a useful intervention to reduce vocal stereotypy in an autistic child.

Rate discrimination training may partially restore temporal processing abilities from age-related deficits

The ability to understand speech in complex environments depends on the ability of the brain to preserve the precise timing characteristics of the speech signal. Age-related declines in temporal processing may contribute to the communication difficulties in challenging listening conditions experienced by older adults. The study purpose was to evaluate the effects of rate discrimination training on auditory temporal processing. A double-blind, randomized control design assigned 77 young normal-hearing, older normal-hearing, and older hearing-impaired listeners to one of two treatment groups: experimental (rate discrimination for 100-Hz and 300-Hz pulse trains) and active control (tone detection in noise). All listeners were evaluated during pre- and post-training sessions using perceptual rate discrimination of 100-, 200-, 300-, and 400-Hz band-limited pulse trains and auditory steady-state responses (ASSRs) to the same stimuli. Training generalization was evaluated using several temporal processing measures and sentence recognition tests that included time-compressed and reverberant speech stimuli. Results demonstrated a session x training group interaction for perceptual and ASSR testing to the trained frequencies (100 and 300 Hz), driven by greater improvements in the training group than in the active control group. Further, post-test rate discrimination of the older listeners reached levels that were equivalent to those of the younger listeners at pre-test. The training-specific gains generalized to untrained frequencies (200 and 400 Hz), but not to other temporal processing or sentence recognition measures. Further, non-auditory inhibition/attention performance predicted training-related improvement in rate discrimination. Overall, the results demonstrate the potential for auditory training to partially restore temporal processing in older listeners and highlight the role of cognitive function in these gains.

Using Errorless Learning and Discrimination Training to Teach Early Literacy Skills in a Pre-School Setting

This case study investigates the effects of using an intervention package of errorless learning and discrimination trial training to teach a 4-year old preschool student to read Consonant-Vowel-Consonant (CVC) words. A single case multiple baseline design across three equal instructional sets was used to evaluate the effects of the intervention package. Each set contained six CVC words incorporating words with each of the five vowels. The results of this study indicate that utilizing both errorless learning and discrimination training to teach a preschool student how to read CVC words was effective. In addition, generalization assessments post-intervention showed an increase in (a) mastering new unknown CVC words, as well as (b) book text reading.

Effects of Birth Order on Performance and Affective State of Pigs

In pigs, higher birth order is associated with higher pre-weaning mortality. However, knowledge on the effect of birth order on welfare of surviving piglets is limited. The aim of this study was to explore the possible link between birth order and both newborn piglet performance and later affective state. Firstly, the following data were collected in 393 piglets from 27 litters: stillbirth, intactness of the umbilical cord and birth weight. Subsets of piglets were used to measure suckling latency (n = 67) and teat order (n = 21). Secondly, a subset of first-born (n = 9) and last-born (n = 7) piglets were trained to perform an active-choice judgement bias task (JBT). During discrimination training preceding the JBT, the pigs learned to associate two tone cues with the availability of either a large (4 M&M's® Milk Chocolate candies) or small (1 M&M's) reward, provided at two different locations. After training, ambiguous intermediate tones were introduced and the pig's choice of location was scored as either optimistic or pessimistic. Results showed that last-born piglets had a higher birth weight than middle-born piglets, while first-born piglets did not significantly differ from last- or middle-born piglets. They also latched to more caudal teats than first-born piglets. The last-born and first-born piglets showed a similar learning rate during discrimination training, and a similar latency to approach reward locations, and had a similar optimistic bias in the JBT.

Reducing Generalization of Conditioned Fear: Beneficial Impact of Fear Relevance and Feedback in Discrimination Training

Anxiety patients over-generalize fear, possibly because of an incapacity to discriminate threat and safety signals. Discrimination trainings are promising approaches for reducing such fear over-generalization. Here we investigated the efficacy of a fear-relevant vs. a fear-irrelevant discrimination training on fear generalization and whether the effects are increased with feedback during training. Eighty participants underwent two fear acquisition blocks, during which one face (conditioned stimulus, CS+), but not another face (CS−), was associated with a female scream (unconditioned stimulus, US). During two generalization blocks, both CSs plus four morphs (generalization stimuli, GS1–GS4) were presented. Between these generalization blocks, half of the participants underwent a fear-relevant discrimination training (discrimination between CS+ and the other faces) with or without feedback and the other half a fear-irrelevant discrimination training (discrimination between the width of lines) with or without feedback. US expectancy, arousal, valence ratings, and skin conductance responses (SCR) indicated successful fear acquisition. Importantly, fear-relevant vs. fear-irrelevant discrimination trainings and feedback vs. no feedback reduced generalization as reflected in US expectancy ratings independently from one another. No effects of training condition were found for arousal and valence ratings or SCR. In summary, this is a first indication that fear-relevant discrimination training and feedback can improve the discrimination between threat and safety signals in healthy individuals, at least for learning-related evaluations, but not evaluations of valence or (physiological) arousal.

The effect of sensory discrimination training on sensorimotor performance in individuals with central neurological conditions: A systematic review

Objective The aim of this systematic review was to investigate the efficacy of sensory discrimination training (SDT) on sensorimotor performance in individuals with a neurological condition affecting the central nervous system. Methods MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, AMED, CENTRAL, PsychINFO, Scopus, OT Seeker, PEDro, ETHOS, Web of Science and OpenGrey were systematically searched for appropriate randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Included studies were assessed for risk of bias, and the quality of the evidence was rated using the GRADE approach. The protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42017055237). Results Six RCTs met the inclusion/exclusion criteria. All studies used manual tactile discrimination to retrain somatosensation. Somatosensory effect sizes (0.12–0.92) and motor function effect sizes (0.12–10.39) ranged from trivial to large with narrative analysis revealing some between-group difference in favour of the intervention group. However, the total sample size ( n = 220) was relatively small, and the quality of the included studies was low. Conclusions SDT may have potential to be an efficacious treatment option for improving sensorimotor performance in individuals with neurological disease. However, at present there is limited evidence on which to base any firm clinical recommendations.

Olfactory Detection of Toluene by Detection Rats for Potential Screening of Lung Cancer

Early detection is critical to successfully eradicating a variety of cancers, so the development of a new cancer primary screening system is essential. Herein, we report an animal nose sensor system for the potential primary screening of lung cancer. To establish this, we developed an odor discrimination training device based on operant conditioning paradigms for detection of toluene, an odor indicator component of lung cancer. The rats (N = 15) were trained to jump onto a floating ledge in response to toluene-spiked breath samples. Twelve rats among 15 trained rats reached performance criterion in 12 consecutive successful tests within a given set, or over 12 sets, with a success rate of over 90%. Through a total of 1934 tests, the trained rats (N = 3) showed excellent performance for toluene detection with 82% accuracy, 83% sensitivity, 81% specificity, 80% positive predictive value (PPV) and 83% negative predictive value (NPV). The animals also acquired considerable performance for odor discrimination even in rigorous tests, validating odor specificity. Since environmental and long-term stability are important factors that can influence the sensing results, the performance of the trained rats was studied under specified temperature (20, 25, and 30 °C) and humidity (30%, 45%, and 60% RH) conditions, and monitored over a period of 45 days. At given conditions of temperature and humidity, the animal sensors showed an average accuracy within a deviation range of ±10%, indicating the excellent environmental stability of the detection rats. Surprisingly, the trained rats did not differ in retention of last odor discrimination when tested 45 days after training, denoting that the rats’ memory for trained odor is still available over a long period of time. When taken together, these results indicate that our odor discrimination training system can be useful for non-invasive breath testing and potential primary screening of lung cancer.