Derived More‐less Relational Mands in Children Diagnosed With Autism

Abstract

In Experiment 1, more and less relations were trained for arbitrary Stimuli A1 and A2 with 3 children with autism. The following conditional discriminations were then trained: A1-B1, A2-B2, B1-C1, B2-C2. In subsequent tests, participants showed derived more-less mands (mand with C1 for more and mand with C2 for less). A training procedure reversed the B-C conditional discriminations, and participants then showed derived reversed more-less mands (mand with C1 for less, C2 for more). Baseline B-C relations were retrained, and participants subsequently demonstrated a return to the original derived manding. A second experiment with 1 prior participant and 1 naive participant removed a possible confounding effect. Establishing derived manding may be an advantageous component when teaching a mand repertoire in applied settings.

Establishing Complex Derived Manding with Children with and Without A Diagnosis of Autism

“…Previous studies that have sought to establish derived manding have used the concept known as the derived transfer of functions (Murphy & Barnes-Holmes, 2009a;Murphy & Barnes-Holmes, 2009b;Murphy et al, 2005;Rehfeldt & Root, 2005;Rosales & Rehfeldt, 2007), a behavioral process that is thought to be pervasive throughout natural human language (Hayes, BarnesHolmes, & Roche, 2001). Derived transfer effects are related to the phenomenon known as stimulus equivalence, in which directly acquired relations between a number of stimuli result in the untrained emergence of additional relations, such that each stimulus becomes functionally equivalent to the other (Sidman, 1971).…”

“…We have argued that establishing derived responding in addition to directly reinforced responding may be important in terms of promoting generative and flexible verbal behavior in children with autism, because this population frequently demonstrates excessive behavioral and verbal rigidity (Murphy & Barnes-Holmes, 2009b;Murphy et al, 2005).…”

“…Murphy and Barnes-Holmes (2009b) sought to extend the work of Murphy et al (2005) with four children (aged 7-11) diagnosed with autism, and this second study demonstrated two different classes of derived mand, one functioning as a request for "more" and the other as a request for "less." All four participants successfully demonstrated derived more/less manding, and two children showed this derived transfer performance in the absence of any programmed differential consequences.…”

“…That is, the specific mand functions were originally trained with the A stimuli before subsequently emerging for the C stimuli via A-B-C equivalence relations (Murphy & Barnes-Holmes, 2009a, 2009bMurphy et al, 2005). In terms of developing flexible verbal repertoires and building up complexity in derived manding, however, it may also be advantageous to establish emergent manding based on a derived transformation of functions.…”

“…Participants were first exposed to match-to-sample (MTS) training to establish more and less functions for two arbitrary stimuli (x and y, respectively; see also Murphy & Barnes-Holmes, 2009b). Specifically, in the presence of Sample x, selecting a long line of tokens was reinforced, and in the presence of Sample y, selecting a short line of tokens was reinforced.…”