Association for Behavior Analysis International

Reading and writing skills can be conceived as a network of equivalence relations between stimuli (e.g., printed words, dictated words, pictures, objects) and between stimuli and responses (e.g., picture naming, textual behavior, transcription, dictation-taking). We have been using this conceptual framework as a foundation for the development of assessment tools and teaching procedures. In this presentation I will describe an instrument for the assessment of basic repertoires involving S-S and R-S relations which characterize the skills of beginning readers. The instrument comprises 15 tasks, organized in blocks of 15 trials each. Some tasks measure identity matching-to-sample (picture identity, printed word identity), arbitrary auditory-visual MTS (picture recognition, printed word recognition), and visual-visual matching-to-sample MTS (picture <--> printed word correspondence). Other tasks measure discriminated operants for which the discriminative stimuli are pictures (picture naming), printed words (copying, textual behavior ["reading'']), and spoken words (dictation-taking). The child performance in these tasks allows the identification of basic perceptual skills (does the student see and hear?), vocal skills (does the student articulate the sounds with accuracy and in the correct sequence?), and the main discriminations required to read and write accurately. Failures in some of these tasks (or in all of them) provide important information about the student's current repertoire and the gaps that need to be developed. The instrument was applied to approximately 2300 students (6 to 12 years old). Individual results allowed the evaluation of selection-based responses (listening and seeing behavior) and topography-based responses (verbal operants in vocal or written modes) and to define a profile of the student's repertoire. Averaged data showed that the matching skills were significantly correlated with textual behavior and dictation-taking. An "integration" index taking into account all the scores showed that, as predicted by the stimulus equivalence paradigm, the interdependence of the operants increased as the entire repertoire developed. The integration index may be a useful tool for the prediction and evaluation of the effects of teaching programs for establishing the target repertoire in non-readers.

Behavior analysts interested in basic (initial) reading and writing repertoires: assessment and teaching procedures

Deisy de Souza is Full Professor at the Psychology Department, Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCar), Brazil, where she teaches behavior analysis in graduate and undergraduate courses in Psychology, and in Special Education. She obtained her Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology at Universidade de São Paulo (USP), under the direction of Carolina Bori, and held a post-doctoral position at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, working with Charlie Catania. She has published articles and book chapters on non-human and human relational learning, including studies applying the stimulus equivalence paradigm to investigate the acquisition of symbolic relations involved in reading and writing, and in developing curricula to teach those skills. She is past-Editor of the Brazilian Journal of Behavior Analysis (BJBA), past-Associate Editor of Acta Comportamentalia, and she is currently a member of the Board of Editors of JEAB. She received the 2015 Distinguished Contributions to the Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Award  from the Experimental Analysis of Human Behavior Special Interest Group (EAHB SIG); she was elected ABAI Fellow (2018); and she is currently the International Representative in the ABAI Council.