Matrix training of preliteracy skills with preschoolers with autism

Matrix training is a generative approach to instruction in which words are arranged in a matrix so that some multiword phrases are taught and others emerge without direct teaching. We taught 4 preschoolers with autism to follow instructions to perform action-picture combinations (e.g., circle the pepper, underline the deer). Each matrix contained 6 actions on 1 axis and 6 pictures on the other axis. We used most-to-least prompting to train the instructions along the diagonal of each matrix and probed the untrained combinations. For 2 participants, untrained responding emerged after the minimum amount of training. The other 2 participants required further training before untrained combinations emerged. At the end of the study, 3 of the 4 participants performed the trained actions with previously known pictures, letters, and numbers. This study demonstrated that matrix training is an efficient approach to teaching language and literacy skills to children with autism.     

Further examination of discriminated functional communication

One child with developmental disabilities was taught to mand for attention by saying "excuse me." Treatment effects were extended to multiple training contexts by teaching the participant to attend to naturally occurring discriminative stimuli through differential reinforcement of communication during periods of the experimenter's nonbusy activities (e.g., reading a magazine). Results are discussed in terms of future research on the generalization and maintenance of functional communication in the natural environment.     

Using behavioral skills training to promote safe and correct staff guarding and ambulation distance of students with multiple physical disabilities

The study analyzed the effects of self-recording and behavioral skills training on guarding responses of 3 staff members while they assisted 3 students with multiple disabilities to ambulate. The intervention increased the percentage of correct posture and guarding responses and the distance that students ambulated. These effects generalized when staff taught new students.     

ACQUISITION OF INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR: TEACHING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM TO MAND FOR ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

Four boys with autism were taught via echoic prompting and constant prompt delay to mand for answers to questions by saying “I don't know please tell me” (IDKPTM). This intervention resulted in acquisition of the IDKPTM response for all 4 participants and in acquisition of correct answers to most of the previously unknown questions for 2 participants. For 1 participant, tangible reinforcement resulted in increased frequency of correct answers, and direct prompting of correct answers was eventually conducted for the final participant. The IDKPTM response generalized to untargeted unknown questions with 3 participants. Results of person and setting generalization probes varied, but some generalization eventually occurred for all participants following additional training or interspersal of probe trials with training trials.     

Shifts in postdiscrimination gradients within a stimulus dimension based on bilateral facial symmetry

A shift in generalization gradients away from S+ and towards stimuli on the opposite end of the stimulus dimension from S- is a well established phenomenon in the laboratory, occurring with humans and nonhumans and with a wide range of stimuli. The phenomenon of gradient shifts has also been observed to have an analogous relationship to a variety of apparent biases in preference observed in the natural environment. One way to examine the validity of such analogies is by examining whether gradient shifts can be observed with complex and naturalistic stimuli. In the present experiment, undergraduates were trained to discriminate between faces that varied in terms of relative bilateral facial symmetry (a stimulus dimension correlated with health and attractiveness). Comparisons were made within subjects, using two sets of images. For both sets, the faces varied from naturally asymmetrical to symmetrical, and S+ was a face equidistant to the two extremes. With one set, S- was the naturally asymmetrical face, and with the other, S- was the symmetrical face. A peak shift was obtained in both conditions, although the effect was clearer in the aggregate than on the level of the individual. Overall, the results are consistent with the view that the processes responsible for gradient shifts in the lab are relevant to judgments made in the natural environment.     

An observation on Carnapʼs Continuum and stochastic independencies

We characterize those identities and independencies which hold for all probability functions on a unary language satisfying the Principle of Atom Exchangeability. We then show that if this is strengthen to the requirement that Johnson?s Sufficientness Principle holds, thus giving Carnap?s Continuum of inductive methods for languages with at least two predicates, then new and somewhat inexplicable identities and independencies emerge, the latter even in the case of Carnap?s Continuum for the language with just a single predicate.     

The law of large numbers in children's diversity-based reasoning

Adults increase the certainty of their inductive inferences by observing more diverse instances. However, most young children fail to do so. The present study tested the hypothesis that children's sensitivity to instance diversity is determined by three variables: ability to discriminate among instances (Discrimination); an intuition that large numbers of instances increase the strength of conclusion (Monotonicity); ability to detect subcategories and evaluate numerical differences between the subcategories, or Extraction. A total of 219 Chinese children aged 6 to 11 were tested for sensitivity to diversity by means of Discrimination, Monotonicity, and Extraction. The results indicated that children at all ages were able to discriminate instances and attend to set size. However, only 9- and 11-year-olds demonstrated Extraction and sensitivity to diversity. Furthermore, among all children diversity scores increased linearly with the level of Extraction. These results suggest that the law of large numbers plays a role in children's diversity-based reasoning.     

Stereo disparity facilitates view generalization during shape recognition for solid multipart objects

Current theories of object recognition in human vision make different predictions about whether the recognition of complex, multipart objects should be influenced by shape information about surface depth orientation and curvature derived from stereo disparity. We examined this issue in five experiments using a recognition memory paradigm in which observers (N = 134) memorized and then discriminated sets of 3D novel objects at trained and untrained viewpoints under either mono or stereo viewing conditions. In order to explore the conditions under which stereo-defined shape information contributes to object recognition we systematically varied the difficulty of view generalization by increasing the angular disparity between trained and untrained views. In one series of experiments, objects were presented from either previously trained views or untrained views rotated (15°, 30°, or 60°) along the same plane. In separate experiments we examined whether view generalization effects interacted with the vertical or horizontal plane of object rotation across 40° viewpoint changes. The results showed robust viewpoint-dependent performance costs: Observers were more efficient in recognizing learned objects from trained than from untrained views, and recognition was worse for extrapolated than for interpolated untrained views. We also found that performance was enhanced by stereo viewing but only at larger angular disparities between trained and untrained views. These findings show that object recognition is not based solely on 2D image information but that it can be facilitated by shape information derived from stereo disparity.     

TEACHING GENERATIVE USE OF SENTENCE ANSWERS TO THREE FORMS OF QUESTIONS1

Three retarded and four economically disadvantaged children were taught, through modelling and reinforcement procedures, to produce complete sentences in response to three types of questions involving changes in verb inflections. To evaluate generalization of training, new but similar questions were periodically asked, answers to which were never modelled or reinforced. Modelling and reinforcement effectively taught correct sentence answers to training questions and produced new sentence answers to questions for which no specific training had been given.     

Inhibitory stimulus control following errorless discrimination learning

Three generalization procedures were used to investigate inhibitory stimulus control following discrimination learning with few errors. Three groups of pigeons acquired a discrimination between a green stimulus (the positive stimulus) and a vertical or horizontal line (the negative stimulus) through differential autoshaping followed by multiple schedule presentation of the two stimuli with gradually increasing stimulus durations. Genereralization testing was along a line-tilt continuum. For one group, the test involved a resistance-to-reinforcement procedure in which responses to all line tilts were reinforced on a variable-interval schedule. For a second group, also tested with the resistance-to-reinforcement procedure, the lines were superimposed on the green field that formerly served as the positive stimulus. A third group was tested in extinction with the combined stimuli. Control groups had no discrimination training but responding to green was nondifferentially reinforced. The control subjects responded more to all line tilts during testing than did the comparable experimental subjects, indicating that the negative stimulus had become an inhibitory stimulus. Both resistance-to-reinforcement groups revealed inhibitory gradients around the negative stimulus, but the gradient for the extinction group was relatively flat. These data are consistent with others that modify Terrace's early conclusion concerning the failure of inhibition to develop during errorless training.