Establishing derived categorical responding in children with disabilities using the PEAK-E curriculum

Area of Science:

• Behavior Analysis
• Developmental Disabilities
• Applied Behavior Analysis

Background:

• Categorical responding is crucial for language and cognitive development.
• Children with disabilities often require specialized interventions to develop these skills.
• Stimulus equivalence offers a framework for understanding derived relations and learning.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate a procedure for generating derived categorical responding in children with disabilities.
• To promote the emergence of untrained intraverbal categorical responses.
• To assess the utility of stimulus equivalence procedures and the PEAK-E curriculum.

Main Methods:

• Employed a match-to-sample procedure to train three 4-member equivalence classes (A, B, C stimuli and D category name).
• Conducted test probes for trained (D-A) and derived (D-B, D-C) categorical relations.
• Assessed the emergence of untrained intraverbal categorical responding (D-A/B/C).

Main Results:

• Relational training successfully promoted the emergence of categorical responding in all three participants.
• Two out of three participants demonstrated the emergence of untrained intraverbal categorical responding.
• The findings support the practical application of stimulus equivalence principles.

Conclusions:

• The evaluated procedure is effective in establishing derived categorical responding.
• Untrained intraverbal categorical responses can emerge following relational training.
• Results reinforce the value of stimulus equivalence and the PEAK-E curriculum for children with disabilities.