Association for Behavior Analysis International

Previous research demonstrated that preschool-aged participants with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can learn tacts in two languages (bilingual condition), but often require more extensive instruction to meet the mastery criterion as compared to learning tacts in one language only (monolingual condition; Zhao et al., under review). Additionally, error analyses indicated failures to discriminate between languages in the bilingual condition. Repeated exposure to instruction in two languages may dissipate these differences. We aimed to determine whether within-subject replications across repeated sets of tacts would reduce discrepancies in learning and examine how error patterns may change. Four sets of targets were taught to each of the three participants with ASD across monolingual and bilingual conditions. Initially, participants learned more efficiently in the monolingual condition than in the bilingual condition. However, these differences diminished across within-subject replications. Error analyses further supported this finding, revealing a decrease in the number of errors emitted across sets. Overall, our findings highlight the potential of within-subject replication to enhance language acquisition in children with ASD and suggest that initial difficulties in bilingual learning may be temporary.

The one-person one-language (OPOL) approach (i.e., each parent speaks a different language to the child) is often suggested by professionals and parents when teaching a vocabulary in two languages. However, few researchers evaluated its effectiveness and efficiency while controlling for language exposure from caregivers. We taught college students to tact pictures in Chinese and Japanese using the OPOL approach (i.e., one experimenter taught tacts in Chinese, and the other one taught tacts in Japanese) and a control, mixing approach (i.e., a third experimenter taught tacts in both Chinese and Japanese). We also probed for the emergence of bidirectional intraverbals before and after the participants demonstrated mastery in tacts. Preliminary data indicated that both approaches were effective in teaching tacts and promoting the emergence of untrained intraverbals; however, no differences were detected with respect to efficiency of the two conditions. Future research should evaluate the external validity of this line of research with other populations, such as children.

There are millions of people who speak multiple languages (U.S. Census Bureau, 2019), yet there is a common misconception that teaching a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) more than one language will cause delays in language acquisition (Trelles & Castro, 2019). It is imperative that a child from a bilingual home can communicate (e.g., respond to instructions) in both languages. However, because many children with ASD acquire skills at a slower rate than neurotypical children (National Institute of Health, 2020), selection of instructional procedures for children with ASD must consider their efficiency. Instructive feedback has been demonstrated to be effective and efficient in teaching multiple targets to children with ASD without requiring additional teaching (Werts et al., 1995). Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of instructive feedback, implemented in a second language, on the acquisition of listener responses of children with ASD from bilingual homes. Results indicate that direct training let to the acquisition of primary targets (i.e., Spanish listener responses) for the three of the participants. Additionally, the inclusion of instructive feedback resulted in the acquisition of English listener responses for all three participants and the emergence of some tacts for all participants.

Previous research conducted in our laboratory showed that the go/no go-successive matching-to-sample procedure effectively establishes equivalence relations between native and foreign words. Teaching two language vocabularies sequentially – Mandarin Chinese dictated word (A) to picture (C) and Korean dictated word (B) to picture (C) resulted in fewer trials to criterion compared to teaching simultaneously (AC and BC). However, simultaneous teaching produced a higher percentage of emergent intraverbals, tacts, and conditional relations during tests of symmetry (CA/CB) and transitivity/equivalence (AB/BA). Given the small differences between conditions, we increased task difficulty by teaching 4 rather than 3 stimulus classes per condition. We taught eight participants AC and BC relations sequentially and simultaneously and tested for emergent intraverbals, tacts, and novel conditional relations during tests of symmetry and transitivity/equivalence. Simultaneous teaching resulted in participants reaching criterion in fewer trials compared to sequential teaching. All participants passed transitivity/equivalence tests after simultaneous teaching, whereas one failed after sequential. Moreover, for 4 participants, simultaneous teaching produced a higher percentage of correct intraverbals. Our results suggest that simultaneous teaching leads to higher percentages of emergent tacts, intraverbals, and novel conditional relations than sequential teaching, possibly because during sequential teaching, the first relation may not be intact during testing.