Association for Behavior Analysis International

In this symposium, we introduce instructional strategies developed based on the relational frame theory, stimulus equivalence, and the naming theory. In the first study, we taught relational responding of symbolic play, tacting pretend stimulus properties, in the play context to three children with autism. The second study used an equivalence-based instruction to facilitate the emergence of untaught relations of Chinese words for two elementary-aged students with intellectual disability. The third study involved using intensive tact instruction to establish naming for young children with autism who lacked this important capacity for advanced learning. The implications of the results will be discussed.

The audience needs to have a basic understanding of the relational frame theory, stimulus equivalence, and naming theory.

Symbolic play is important in child development. Children with autism spectrum disorder often lack symbolic play skills. Attribution of pretend properties (APP) is one type of symbolic play in which a child tacts pretend properties of an object (e.g., smelling a toy flower and saying, “It smells like a rose!”) in the play context. The purpose of the study was to increase APP in children who lacked such play skills. The intervention involved having the child experience and tact sensory properties (see, hear, smell, taste, touch) of actual objects (e.g., an actual apple). The test objects, including mock objects (e.g., a toy apple) and arbitrary objects (e.g., a ping pong ball), were used to evaluate whether tact response for sensory properties were transferred to non-actual objects. Three Chinese boys (5-6 years of age) with ASD served as participants. A multiple probe across five objects design was used. Results indicated that the intervention effectively increased APP for mock and arbitrary objects and maintained for 7 or 10 weeks. Non-target properties for test objects also occurred for two children.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of equivalence-based instruction on symmetry and transitivity of Chinese vocabulary. Two elementary-aged students with intellectual disability participated in the study. A multiple probe across behaviors design was used. Three types of stimuli included textual words (A), pictures (B), and utterances of object names (C). The participants had acquired tacting the pictures (B = C) before the study. The results indicated that when the equivalence relation of textual words and corresponding pictures (A = B) were taught, the symmetrical relation (B = A) and the transitive relations (A = C and C = A) emerged without direct training.

The present study tested effects of Intensive Tact Instruction on development of Naming capabilities in preschoolers with language delays and developmental delays. Naming defines as a capability which enable children learn to point as a listener response or learn to tact as speaker response without direct instruction history. We call these responses as a listener Naming or speaker Naming. During the baseline phase, listener Naming capability and speaker Naming capability were probed with Set 1, Set 2, Set 3. All of the participants showed some listener Naming responses. showed lower level of responses as speaker Naming Participant C and Participant E didn’t show speaker Naming and the others showed lower level of speaker Naming responses. During the Intensive Tact Instruction, 86 tact instruction trials were provided in addtion to regular daily instruction trials using 5 stimulus sets, Set 4, Set 5, Set 6, Set 7, Set 8. The Instruction completed when participants reached to preset criterion. Post intervention Naming probe were conducted using the same stimulus sets, Set 1, Set 2, Set 3 as the one used during the baseline probes. Listener Naming responses and speaker Naming responses were improved significantly in Participant A, Participant B, Participant D. Speaker Naming capabilities were emerged In Participant C and Participant E with the intervention. All of the participants showed some generalized Naming responses with two novel sets of stimuli. The results were discussed in terms of the emergence of Naming and prerequisite responses required for implementation of the intensive tact Instruction procedure.