Matrix Training With and Without Instructive Feedback

Abstract

The current study examined the efficacy and efficiency of incorporating instructive feedback within matrix training to teach children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to label common characters and cities. Experimenters taught one set of responses using a non-overlapping matrix, a second set of responses using an overlapping matrix, and a third set of responses using a non-overlapping matrix along with secondary targets to three individuals with ASD. The results demonstrated that all teaching methods were effective, and all trained and untrained responses were acquired. Matrix training with instructive feedback was equally as efficient as non-overlapping matrix training and overlapping matrix training, requiring about the same number of sessions for each participant to acquire the responses. The findings demonstrated that establishing recombinative generalization through matrix training and instructive feedback is equally and maybe even more effective and efficient than matrix training in isolation in some circumstances.