Search

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether children would categorize pictures when taught the relevant listener and speaker behaviors separately. A category-sort test was used to assess emergent conditional relations. Category-sort trials consisted of looking at (Test 1) or tacting/labeling (Test 2) a sample stimulus and selecting the appropriate comparison stimuli. In Experiment 1, 4 children (3-5 years) were taught to tact pictures of six U.S. state maps as either north or south. An assessment was conducted to determine whether they would (1) correctly categorize or sort when presented with a visual sample and (2) select the correct stimuli when hearing their category names (listener behavior). Two of the children categorized the pictures during Posttest 1 after the initial (pairwise) tact training. The other 2 categorized after receiving additional tact training with all pictures presented together. However, one of them categorized only during Posttest 2. In Experiment 2, 4 children (3-5 years) were taught to select pictures when hearing their category names. An assessment was conducted to determine whether they would (1) correctly categorize or sort and (2) tact the stimuli (speaker behavior). One child categorized the pictures during Posttest 1, and two during Posttest 2. The other child required additional training with all pictures grouped together. When participants failed to categorize, they also failed to tact the pictures accurately. Taken together, results from Experiments 1 and 2 show that both speaker and listener behavior play an important role in stimulus categorization. (Contains 5 figures, 1 footnote, and 4 tables.)

Two studies were conducted to explore the effects of differential observing responses (DORs) on vocal tact acquisition in preschool‐age children of typical development. In Study 1 with three participants, an identity‐matching DOR was incorporated into tact instruction trials with novel visual stimuli. Acquisition rates were similar in the DOR condition and in a non‐DOR condition. In Study 2 with five new participants, the identity‐matching DOR was implemented as an intervention when standard discrete‐trial instruction failed to produce acquisition of tacts of compound stimuli. Two participants reached mastery after the identity‐matching DOR was introduced, whereas three participants' progress was unaffected. For those three, the identity‐matching DOR was replaced with a verbal DOR (tacting of stimulus components), but although one participant's correct responding increased, none reached mastery. Two participants ultimately reached mastery after a non‐DOR intervention. Conditions under which DORs facilitate stimulus control outside of MTS tasks remain to be identified. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]