Establishment of naming in children with autism through multiple response-exemplar training.

Abstract

In behavior analysis, naming is defined as an integration of speaker and listener behavior. After exposure to a tact, appropriate listener behavior can occur, and vice versa, without direct training. When a child is able to learn new word-object relations from observations of others’ tacts both as speaker and listener, full naming has emerged. Naming consists of echoic, pure tact, impure tact, and listener responses. However, children with autism often fail to acquire the naming capability. The present study replicated the results of previous experiments that have emphasized the role of a multiple exemplar training that involves a rotation of the antecedents for the different response types that constitute naming. Further, the present study extended previous research by requiring the participants to echo the teacher’s tacts of the sample stimulus during matching-to-sample training, before naming probes. Consistent with the notion that a rotation of training trials across point to, pure tact, and impure tact responses produces naming skills in children with autism, the results showed improved tacting and listener behavior following such training.

The importance of multiple exemplar instruction in the establishment of novel verbal behavior

“…Notably, these results have been replicated across children with different disabilities (e.g., learning delays and developmental disabilities, Greer et al, ; autism, Fiorile & Greer, ; Olaff et al, ), typically developing children (Gilic & Greer, ), very young (i.e., 2‐year‐old) children (Gilic & Greer, ), children with varying numbers of prerequisite BiN skills (e.g., echoics, tacts, and listener behavior), and children with extremely limited vocal–verbal repertoires (Fiorile & Greer, ). Despite different procedural manipulations such as echoic training during MTS instruction (Cao & Greer, ; Hawkins, Kingsdorf, Charnock, Szabo, & Gautreaux, ; Olaff et al, ) or matching without echoic training (Gilic & Greer, ), results show that BiN did not emerge until after MEI was implemented. Studies have also compared MEI to single‐exemplar instruction (SEI; e.g., Greer et al, ), which consists of targeting a single verbal operant at a time and teaching other verbal operants separately and sequentially via a series of simple discrimination contingencies (Green, ).…”

“…Taken together, the results of the aforementioned studies (Cahill & Greer, ; Fiorile & Greer, ; Gilic & Greer, ; Greer, Stolfi, et al, 2005; Greer et al, ; Olaff et al, ) suggest that MEI can be used to effectively establish functional interdependence between speaker and listener repertoires. Most notably, these studies show that the prerequisite skills required for BiN (i.e., listener behavior, echoics, and tacts) can be taught to children with even very limited vocal–verbal repertoires, and that a subsequent programmed history of MEI can lead to the development of this critical cusp (Bosch & Fuqua, ; Rosales‐Ruiz & Baer, ).…”

“…With few exceptions (i.e., Arntzen & Almas, ; Carroll & Hesse, ; Lechago, Carr, Kisamore, & Grow, ; Olaff et al, ; Sidener et al, ), the vast majority of studies published demonstrating the effectiveness of MEI in producing functional interdependence originate from the same group of researchers (i.e., Eby et al, ; Fiorile & Greer, ; Greer & Longano, ; Greer, Stolfi, et al, 2005; Greer et al, ; Greer & Yuan, ; Greer, Yuan, et al, 2005; Hawkins et al, ; Nuzzolo‐Gomez & Greer, ; Speckman et al, ). It should be noted that some investigations conducted by independent research laboratories have failed to replicate the outcomes described above (e.g., Lechago et al, ; Sidener et al, ).…”

“…It remains unclear how much exposure to MEI is required before generative verbal behavior becomes a generalized operant. Individual participant differences seem to determine the amount of explicit teaching required for a successful outcome (e.g., Fiorile & Greer, ; Greer & Longano; ; Greer, Stolfi, et al, 2005; Olaff et al, ). For instance, one of the three participants in Olaff et al () required MEI with two sets of stimuli prior to demonstrating emergence of both speaker and listener responses at criterion with a third and final set of stimuli.…”

“…Thus, multiple exemplar training is utilized within both the stimulus equivalence and RFT approaches. When studying BiN ( Miguel, ), researchers used multiple exemplar instruction (MEI; e.g., Arntzen & Almas, ; Carroll & Hesse, ; Eby, Greer, Tullo, Baker, & Pauly, ; Greer, Stolfi, Chavez‐Brown, & Rivera‐ Valdes, ; Greer, Stolfi, & Pistoljevic, ; Olaff, Ona, & Holth, ; Speckman, Greer, & Rivera‐Valdes, ) to produce interdependence between speaker and listener repertoires, or between verbal operants within the same repertoire. What follows is a brief description of both MET and MEI and a short review of some of the research highlighting the use of both in producing generativity.…”