Concept learning by retarded children: a comparison of three discrimination learning procedures

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis

Background:

• Children with developmental delays often require specialized interventions for concept learning.
• Stimulus control procedures like fading and delay are used to shape behavior.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the effectiveness of stimulus fading and stimulus delay procedures against differential reinforcement alone in teaching concept learning to developmentally delayed children.
• To investigate if specific prompting strategies influence concept acquisition.

Main Methods:

• Twenty-four developmentally delayed children were randomly assigned to three groups: stimulus fading, stimulus delay, or differential reinforcement only.
• Each group underwent five discrimination training programs targeting the concepts 'bottle' and 'jar'.
• Concept acquisition was assessed via probes after each training program.

Main Results:

• Five children in the stimulus fading group, three in the stimulus delay group, and four in the reinforcement only group learned the concepts.
• Children who learned to discriminate exemplars demonstrated conceptual behavior after training on two or fewer pairs.
• No significant differences in effectiveness were observed between the three treatment conditions.

Conclusions:

• Stimulus fading, stimulus delay, and differential reinforcement appear similarly effective for teaching basic concepts to this population.
• The complexity of the concept learning task or the nature of prompts used may have obscured differences between the procedures.
• Further research is needed to explore the impact of task difficulty and prompt types on intervention effectiveness.