Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often emit errors during the establishment of conditional discriminations. These children may not respond to more traditional error-correction procedures, such as least-to-most prompting. In this study, we compared two other types of error-correction procedures, namely embedding an identity-matching…

This study evaluated an intervention package combining simple and conditional discrimination training and specific reinforcement for each stimulus class in teaching reading of simple words to individuals with intellectual disabilities. In conditional discrimination training, participants matched printed words and pictures to the recorded sounds…

Variation in baseline controlling relations is suggested as one of the factors determining variability in stimulus equivalence outcomes. This study used single- comparison trials attempting to control such controlling relations. Four children learned AB, BC, and CD conditional discriminations, with 2 samples and 2 comparison stimuli. In Condition…

This study compared no-no prompting procedures to simultaneous prompting procedures for 3 children with autism. Using a parallel treatments design, researchers taught rote math skills, receptive labels, or answers to "wh-" questions with both prompting systems. Results indicated that no-no prompting was effective in teaching all skills. By…

A linked perceptual class consists of two distinct perceptual classes, A' and B', the members of which have become related to each other. For example, a linked perceptual class might be composed of many pictures of a woman (one perceptual class) and the sounds of that woman's voice (the other perceptual class). In this case, any sound of the…

Early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) is an approach to treating the behavioral deficits and excesses observed in children with autism spectrum disorders. The magnitude of improvement in the overall functioning of children receiving EIBI has stimulated additional research and widespread clinical dissemination through the publication…

Behavioral, neuropsychological, and brain imaging research points to a dedicated system for processing number that is shared across development and across species. This foundational Approximate Number System (ANS) operates over multiple modalities, forming representations of the number of objects, sounds, or events in a scene. This system is…

Compared the performance of children with and without autism in object-based positive and negative priming tasks within a visual search procedure. Found object-based positive and negative priming effects in both groups, with no group differences in the magnitude of the effects. Compared to typically developing children, children with autism were…

Global-local processing was examined in high-functioning children with autism and in groups of typically developing children. In experiment 1, the effects of structural bias were tested by comparing visual search that favored access to either local or global targets. The children with autism were not unusually sensitive to either level of visual…

Two normal and two mentally retarded children were trained to earn pennies by pressing a key according to a multiple variable-interval extinction schedule of reinforcement. Retarded children differed from normal children by producing more positive than negative discriminative stimuli. (Author/DB)

Recent studies have suggested that unusual visual processing in autism might stem from enhanced visual discrimination. Although there are also many anecdotal reports of auditory and tactile processing disturbances in autism these have received comparatively little attention. It is possible that the enhanced discrimination ability in vision in…

Two groups of mentally retarded children (MA: 4 to 8 years) were pretrained using two different methods. It was predicted that shift performance of the two groups trained to use different strategies would resemble those of two different developmental levels. (MP)

THE ERROR FACTORS WHICH OPERATE DURING THE DISCRIMINATION LEARNING OF NORMAL CHILDREN WERE STUDIED. THREE EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED TO COMPARE RESPONSE-SHIFT AND RESPONSE-PRESERVERATION TENDENCIES OF DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS. THE FIRST EXPERIMENT INCLUDED 4-, 6-, 8-, AND 10-YEAR-OLDS WHO WERE GIVEN REWARD AND NONREWARD PROBLEMS. THE SECOND EXPERIMENT…

Tries to unravel some of the problems concerning the previous finding that increasing the number of depth cues in pictures has a depressing effect on spatial accuracy of three dimensional reconstruction of pictures. Evidence does not support a deficiency in perceiving pictorial depth in African children. (AM)

This study was designed to assess the relative effectiveness of four components of pretraining on a subsequent simultaneous discrimination and reversal: (1) making same-different judgments about the two stimuli; (2) making a specific observing response to the critical feature of the stimuli; (3) simple familiarization with the stimuli; and (4)…