The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a go/no‐go successive matching‐to‐sample procedure (S‐MTS) to establish auditory–visual equivalence classes with college students. A sample and a comparison were presented, one at a time, in the same location. During training, after an auditory stimulus was presented, a green box appeared in the center of the screen for participants to touch to produce the comparison. Touching the visual comparison that was related to the auditory sample (e.g., A1B1) produced points, while touching or refraining from touching an unrelated comparison (e.g., A1B2) produced no consequences. Following AB/AC training, participants were tested on untrained relations (i.e., BA/CA and BC/CB), as well as tacting and sorting. During BA/CA relations tests, after touching the visual sample, the auditory stimulus was presented along with a white box for participants to respond. During BC/CB relations tests, after touching the visual sample, a visual comparison appeared. Across 2 experiments, all participants met emergence criterion for untrained relations and for sorting. Additionally, 14 out of 24 participants tacted all visual stimuli correctly. Results suggest the auditory–visual S‐MTS procedure is an effective alternative to simultaneous MTS for establishing conditional relations and auditory‐visual equivalence classes.

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If one of several stimuli in an equivalence class acquires a function, it transfers to all members of the respective class. Even though research has demonstrated this transfer across a variety of stimulus functions (e.g., discriminative), few studies have focused on the transfer of the reinforcing function. The current study extended previous literature by establishing derived reinforcers using conditional discrimination training with six neurotypical adults. We established three 4-member equivalence classes and then created a discriminative stimulus in one member by correlating it with reinforcement. We also expanded classes by adding a stimulus to each class and testing its function. During the transfer of function tests, five out of six participants chose the derived reinforcers more than the other stimuli. Three participants required remedial training or testing prior to demonstrating transfer of function. Results show that stimulus equivalence training is an effective and efficient paradigm to establish derived reinforcers.

Equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) is an efficient and efficacious methodology to establish equivalence classes that has been used to teach various academic skills to neurotypical adults. Although previous reviews confirmed the utility of EBI with participants with developmental disabilities, it is unclear whether certain procedural parameters are associated with positive equivalence outcomes. We extended previous reviews by categorizing studies that used EBI with individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and assessed whether any procedural parameters were associated with better equivalence responding. Due to the wide variability of procedural parameters in EBI research, the best procedural permutations to form equivalence classes with individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder are still unknown. Thus, this paper serves as a call to action for applied researchers. Specifically, we encourage and invite researchers to systematically investigate the necessary variables or combination of variables that may lead to successful equivalence class formation.