Association for Behavior Analysis International

To close the learning gap between most children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and their neurotypical peers, it is essential to develop procedures that support emergent responding and observational learning. The first talk consists of a systematic literature review of studies that used equivalence-based instruction (EBI) to teach children various behaviors. The main focus was to identify the procedural parameters that yielded the best emergent behavior outcomes. The second talk describes a study that used EBI to teach children categories. The authors also taught the functions of one stimulus in each category, and children demonstrated transfer of function to untrained members of each category. The third talk describes a study that compared the simultaneous and sequential acquisition of tacts in two languages. In addition to evaluating the optimal order of learning tacts, the authors evaluated the emergence of bidirectional intraverbals and listener responses in two languages. The fourth talk describes two procedures to teach mands for information: one through direct instruction, and the other through observational learning. In this series of talks, the authors will focus on outlining the optimal procedures to promote emergent behavior when designing curricula for children with ASD. We will also outline recommendations for future research.

Individuals who have completed the Master's coursework in behavior analysis.

Equivalence-based instruction (EBI) has been an efficient and effective teaching methodology to establish equivalence class responding across a variety of academic skills in neurotypical adults. Although previous reviews confirmed the utility of EBI with participants with developmental disabilities, it is still unclear whether certain procedural parameters are associated with positive equivalence outcomes. We extend previous EBI reviews by categorizing studies that utilized EBI with individuals diagnosed with autism and assessed any correlations between procedural parameters and equivalence responding. A total of 29 studies with 91 participants met our inclusion criteria. The current results corroborate previous findings on the utility of EBI. Additionally, the training structure and the number of members per class achieved statistical significance. However, due to inconsistencies across studies employing different combinations of procedural parameters, it is difficult to determine which arrangement of training variables would yield the most successful equivalence outcomes. Recommendations for future research and directions will be discussed.

Previous research has confirmed the effectiveness of equivalence-based instruction (EBI), however, most studies have been conducted with adult participants teaching arbitrary stimulus classes. More research is needed to confirm the external validity of EBI with younger participants, teaching clinically significant skills in applied settings. The current study bridges those gaps. Specifically, our aims were 1) to use EBI procedures to teach preschool children with autism to form stimulus classes consisting of age-appropriate categories, and 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of transfer of function within these classes, and 3) to implement these procedures using easily accessible table-top procedures. This study is ongoing, and we expect it to confirm the efficacy of EBI with clinical populations in applied settings. The procedures are easily transportable to clinical settings given their practicality and accessibility. Finally, creating derived relations between stimuli and demonstrating transfer of function are important outcomes considering that the instruction most children with autism require can be time-consuming and costly. We will discuss implications for clinical practice and directions for future research.

This talk will discuss the optimal procedures to teach two languages for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) from bilingual households. We compared the acquisition of tacts when (a) teaching two languages simultaneously, (b) teaching two languages sequentially, and (c) teaching one language only (control). We also evaluated the effects of the aforementioned teaching conditions on the maintenance of tacts. Finally, we evaluated the emergence of bidirectional intraverbals and listener responses following the acquisition of tacts. Overall, children learned tacts in the two languages simultaneously better than sequentially. Further, the longer the duration of the training, the better the maintenance. Finally, children demonstrated better bidirectional intraverbals when learning two languages simultaneously. These findings have direct implications for clinical practice. We will also discuss outline directions for future research.