Effects of Functional Discrimination Training on Initial Receptive Language in Individuals With Autism Spectrum...

Area of Science:

• Behavior Analysis
• Developmental Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Behavior-analytic procedures are effective for teaching language to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
• Some children with ASD do not acquire language skills despite intensive teaching efforts.
• Auditory-visual conditional discriminations are foundational for language development.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the impact of functional versus arbitrary reinforcement on auditory-visual conditional discriminations in children with ASD.
• To identify if functional reinforcement can enhance discrimination learning in children with a history of learning difficulties.

Main Methods:

• An adapted alternating treatment design was used to compare two reinforcement conditions.
• The number of trials to establish discriminations was the primary outcome measure.
• Participants were children with ASD who had previously struggled with discrimination learning.

Main Results:

• Five of eight participants acquired discriminations more rapidly under the functional reinforcement condition.
• Participants in the functional reinforcement condition demonstrated discrimination between a greater number of items.
• Three participants did not achieve discrimination in either condition within the study parameters.

Conclusions:

• Functional reinforcement may be a more effective strategy than arbitrary reinforcement for some children with ASD.
• This approach offers a potential alternative for individuals who do not benefit from traditional discrimination training.
• Further research is warranted to explore the efficacy of functional reinforcement across diverse populations with ASD.