Establishing a Beginner Listener Repertoire via Visual Match-to-Sample Discrimination Training

Establishing a Beginner Listener Repertoire via Visual Match-to-Sample Discrimination Training

Tiffany M. Bauer MA, BCBAJessica Korneder MA, BCBASally D. Moore MA, BCBALen Levin, PhD

Introduction•EIBI curricula adhere to a specific scope

and sequence AttendingComplianceMatchingImitation Listening Manding/Functional Communication

Introduction•More efficient ways to teach have been

developed (i.e. Sidman with stimulus equivalence, and now more recently Greer and Ross)

•With limited time and resources it is important to look at more efficient teaching in early intervention

Introduction•Easier for young children with autism to

learn tasks that incorporate a visual discriminative stimulus than it is for them to learn language comprehension tasks that do not incorporate visual cues

•Greer and Ross (2008) describe a procedure to induce language comprehension or specifically, a listener component of naming repertoire

Listener Component of Naming•Defined as “Learning to respond as a

listener after incidentally hearing a word spoken by another person” (p. 99, Verbal Behavior Analysis)

Listener Component of Naming

“ If the child has the listener component of naming, they will point to the correct stimulus simply because they have heard the word during the matching instruction and not because they received direct instruction for the pointing response” (p. 93, Verbal Behavior Analysis)

Full Naming

“…capacity to acquire a tact (pure or impure) and a listener response by simply hearing another person tact a stimulus” (p. 149, Verbal Behavior Analysis)

Hypothesis•The simultaneous presentation of a vocal

sample (i.e., a tact) and visual sample as part of the discriminative stimulus in a visual, match-to-sample task will increase a learner’s acquisition of untaught receptive and tacting targets

•“Once the child has the listener half of naming, they learning two responses for every one that you teach” (p. 109, Verbal Behavior Analysis)

Established Matching ProtocolsSD Response RepertoireVisual + “Put with same”

Child matches visual to sample

Matching

“Student sits at the table and the teacher sits next to or across from Student. Place two objects on the table, spaced well apart from each other. Hand Student an object that matches one of the items on the table and say, “Put with same” (p. 165, Work In Progress)

Modified Match to Sample

SD Response RepertoireVisual stimulus + Say COW

Child matches picture of COW

Matching

Target Repertoires to Induce Via Matching Protocol

SD Response RepertoireSay COW Child

touches COW

Identify/Listening skills

See COW Child says COW

Tact

Participants

•Receiving in home EIBI•Age range: 2.0-2.11 years•At risk for Autism or developmental

delays •Evidence of limited listener repertoire

(e.g. routine instructions with cues)

Method- General Procedure•Baseline all program targets (i.e. both

listener and speaker components of naming) before opening matching program.

•Implement protocol for all targets that were unknown.

•After all targets are mastered via matching, repeat baseline

Method- Teaching Steps

1. Teach 2-3 targets in each step (Field of 3-5)- increase field with mastered targets

2. Random rotate neat and messy array3. Issue just the target label (e.g. “Cow”) as

the SD -Do not use” match”, “put with same”, or any other Sd

4. Teach in standard format: Errorless - EC5. Continue to randomly rotate with

mastered targets throughout teaching

Mock Data Sheet

Teaching

Teaching

Method- Teaching Procedure

•Do not pre-test out of the matching steps

•Before moving on to the next teaching step run 40 trials (days do not matter) with 80% or higher average

•Mastery Criterion: 80% or better across 40 trials

Participant 1

Participant 2

Participant 3

Participant 4

Participant 5

Participant 6

Participant 7

Discussion

• Anecdotally we have had less success inducing the listener and naming response when matching was in maintenance versus matching in acquisition

• When the child has an echoic repertoire there was more success in learning the tacts

Discussion

• Non-identical matching is standard in EIBI curriculum

• Under what conditions do we utilize a label SD

versus a “match” SD ?• Develop a decision tree to modify scope and

sequence