Systematic Review of Matrix Training for Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Matrix training is an intervention that systematically programs for the occurrence of generative outcomes, mostly in the area of language. A literature search identified studies that evaluated matrix training with individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Based on 12 reviewed studies, we asked questions regarding participant characteristics, targeted skills, matrix designs, evidence-based teaching strategies, percentage of learning that occurred through direct teaching and recombinative generalization, and the quality of the studies. With 29 total participants, mostly preschool and elementary ages, the most common teaching strategy implemented was a discrete trial training paradigm targeting language development. Overall, findings suggest that matrix training produced an average of 69% of learning without direct teaching across the areas of language, play, sentence construction, and spelling.

Matrix Training for Toddlers With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Language Delays

Although matrix training is an intervention technique designed to promote generative language, it has not been applied widely to toddlers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) despite the benefits it may have for this young population. We investigated the use of matrix training to teach generative receptive language to toddlers with ASD and other language delays. Three participants were systematically taught to respond to instructions organized in action-object instruction matrices. Recombinative generalization probes were administered to determine if untrained action-object instruction following occurred without direct teaching in a multiple probe design. Although recombinative generalization was partial, approximately 30% of the learned action-object instructions occurred through direct teaching, whereas the other 70% of learning occurred through generalization. Matrix training provided a systematic teaching framework for facilitating generative language learning.