Rebirth of the Shriver Automated Teaching Laboratory

This article describes an updated version of an automated teaching laboratory (ATL) at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Center at the University of Massachusetts Medical School

Exclusive Preference on Concurrent Schedules in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Treatment programs often utilize positive consequences to establish, increase, or maintain behavior. Recently, Dube and McIlvane (2002) examined the sensitivity of individuals with neurodevelopmental disabilities to differences in the frequency and magnitude of reinforcing consequences. Six individuals were exposed to a concurrent-choice procedure during which each option was associated with a range of schedules differing in reinforcer frequency or magnitude. Data were analyzed in accordance with the generalized matching law (Baum, 1974) and the positive slopes of obtained matching functions indicated sensitivity to the programmed reinforcer disparities. In recent follow-up work, we have been using the methods of Dube and McIlvane (2002) to assess sensitivity to changes in reinforcer frequency in individuals at lower functioning levels. During pretraining, a number of our recent participants developed exclusive or near-exclusive stimulus preferences that have proven difficult to overcome. This “Research in Progress” report is intended to highlight this challenge, describe efforts to overcome it, and to report potentially promising remedial procedures

Training and Generalization of Complex Auditory-Visual Conditional Discriminations in Individuals With Autism: New Procedures Using Dynamic Stimuli

Individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities often have difficulty learning auditory-visual conditional discriminations that are important for early communication and generalization may be restricted. Programs for teaching these individuals often involve the fading (gradual change) of stimuli in small steps across trials. Failure to establish desired discriminations occurs when the fading does not direct attention to the relevant critical aspects of the stimuli. The research described here illustrates new attention-shaping procedures for teaching complex auditory-visual discriminations and assessing generalization. The major purpose was to begin evaluation of the dual-modality transfer procedures with abstract stimulus sets that would rule out pre-experimental learning as an explanation of cross-modal (i.e., visual-to-auditory) transfer of stimulus control. In one procedure, auditory samples (pairs of same and different tones) were added to visual stimuli (pairs of same and different forms that participants matched already) presented as samples and comparisons. Across-trial contrast fading then gradually ‘vanished’ the visual samples, in order to establish conditional control of comparison selections by the pairs of same and different tones. Generalization then was assessed using new frequencies of the tones. Another procedure introduced a novel dynamic fading method. The visual cues that already controlled responding were erased actively within trials (like apparent movement) and cumulatively across trials. After fading, conditional control was demonstrated by the auditory samples only. Generalization was tested using tones with frequencies different from the training stimuli. Presented at the 38th Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis International

A Comparison of Exclusion and Trial-and-Error Procedures: Primary and Secondary Effects

Results of a study that compared exclusion and trial-and-error procedures in children with intellectual disabilities

Assessing Behavioral Momentum in Humans with Mental Retardation and Unstable Baselines

Our laboratory is currently conducting studies of behavioral momentum in humans with mental retardation. A better understanding of momentum effects may contribute to more effective procedures for reducing or eliminating learning problems in this population (e.g., McIlvane & Dube, 2000). In our studies, we have occasionally encountered cases where even liberal baseline stability criteria were not met after a substantial number of sessions, and thus typical procedures for evaluating momentum were not appropriate. This brief report will describe an alternative testing procedure that we are examining for use in these situations

Recombinative Generalization in Minimal Verbal Unit-Based Reading Instruction for Pre-Reading Children

Reading research study conducted as part of a Brazilian effort to develop an evidence-based curriculum for teaching foundations of reading

A FORMAÇÃO DE CLASSES DE EQUIVALÊNCIA VIA PAREAMENTO POR IDENTIDADE E DISCRIMINAÇÃO SIMPLES COM CONSEQÜÊNCIAS ESPECÍFICAS PARA AS CLASSES

Human participant performances often show evidence of learning untrained relations when conditional discrimination training between physically dissimilar stimuli is conducted. These emergent relations document equivalence class formation. The current study investigated whether class-specific consequences (i.e. the specific reinforcers used for each potential class during training) also join the equivalence class. Several studies have suggested they do so. However, training in those studies typically included arbitrary matching and identity matching baselines. In the current study, two autistic children were trained on simple discrimination reversals and identity matching with class specific consequences. They were then given arbitrary matching probes. Performances of both children initially showed evidence of class formation on these tests, despite the fact that neither had received training on arbitrary matching. In addition, one of the participants showed evidence of class formation after simple discrimination reversal training alone. These results demonstrate that the reinforcing consequences do in fact become part of the stimulus equivalence class and provide support for the ideas that equivalence (1) arises from reinforcement contingency and (2) is not based upon language skills. Key words: Stimulus equivalence, matching to sample, simple discrimination, outcome-specific reinforcement,differential outcomes effect, mental retardationO desempenho de participantes humanos freqüentemente mostra aprendizagem de relações não diretamente ensinadas após o treino de discriminações condicionais entre estímulos fisicamente diferentes. Essas relações emergentes documentam a formação de classes de equivalência. O presente estudo investigou se conseqüências específicas paras as classes (i.e., reforçadores específicos usados para cada classe potencial durante o treino) também integram as classes de equivalência. Vários estudos anteriores sugeriram que as conseqüências específicas podem integrar as classes, entretanto, o treino nesses estudos inclui pareamento arbitrário e pareamento por identidade. No presente estudo, duas crianças autistas foram submetidas apenas a treino de reversões de discriminações simples e pareamento por identidade com conseqüências específicas paras as classes potenciais. Então, testes de pareamento arbitrário foram conduzidos. O desempenho das crianças evidenciou a formação de classes nestes testes, a despeito de elas não terem experiência de treino de pareamento arbitrário. Adicionalmente, um dos participantes mostrou evidência de formação de classes após treino de reversões de discriminação simples somente. Esses resultados tanto demonstram que as conseqüências reforçadoras de fato se tornam parte das classes de equivalência, quanto dão suporte à idéia de que equivalência surge das contingências de reforçamento e não é baseada em habilidades lingüísticas. Palavras-chave: equivalência de estímulos, pareamento ao modelo, discriminação simples, reforçamento específico, efeito de conseqüência específica, retardo menta

Equivalence class formation via identity matching to sample and simple discrimination with class-specific consequences

Human participant performances often show evidence of learning untrained relations when conditional discrimination training between physically dissimilar stimuli is conducted. These emergent relations document equivalence class formation. The current study investigated whether class-specific consequences (i.e. the specific reinforcers used for each potential class during training) also join the equivalence class. Several studies have suggested they do so. However, training in those studies typically included arbitrary matching and identity matching baselines. In the current study, two autistic children were trained on simple discrimination reversals and identity matching with class specific consequences. They were then given arbitrary matching probes. Performances of both children initially showed evidence of class formation on these tests, despite the fact that neither had received training on arbitrary matching. In addition, one of the participants showed evidence of class formation after simple discrimination reversal training alone. These results demonstrate that the reinforcing consequences do in fact become part of the stimulus equivalence class and provide support for the ideas that equivalence (1) arises from reinforcement contingency and (2) is not based upon language skills

Measuring Brain Activity Correlates of Behavior: A Methodological Overview

The present article was prepared as an introduction to current approaches to studying brain activity correlates of behavior. Our goals are to (1) acquaint readers with current methods for detecting brain activity correlates of behavior and (2) suggest examples of scientific opportunities for collaborative research with brain scientists

Studies of Brain Activity Correlates of Behavior in Individuals with and without Developmental Disabilities

There is a rich assortment of brain imaging methodologies that permits evaluation of the covert events that are necessary to complete a comprehensive account of behavior. Among the latter methodologies, our laboratories have begun to explore event-related potential (ERP) research to complement traditional behavior analysis