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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol. 11, No. 1
Publication Date: January 25, 2024
DOI:10.14738/assrj.111.16172.
Matos, D. C., Loureiro, D. J. R., Silva, K. R., & Galvão, P. (2024). Comparison of Two Maintenance Training Arrangements with
Instructive Feedback in Children with Autism. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(1). 01-25.
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
Comparison of Two Maintenance Training Arrangements with
Instructive Feedback in Children with Autism
Daniel Carvalho de Matos
ORCID: 0000-0002-6793-0101
Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Instituto Evoluir
and Universidade Ceuma, São Luís – Maranhão, Brazil
Danielle Juliana Ribeiro Loureiro
ORCID: 0000-0001-8502-1510
Universidade Ceuma, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil
Katiane Reis da Silva
ORCID: 0000-0001-8428-5215
Universidade Ceuma, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil
Pollianna Galvão
ORCID: 0000-0001-7579-8852
Universidade Federal do Maranhão, Instituto Evoluir
and Universidade Ceuma, São Luís, Maranhão, Brazil
ABSTRACT
Instructive feedback (IF) can improve the efficiency of teaching in children with
autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by establishing emergent skills. The purpose of
this study was to compare the effects of two types of listeners responding
maintenance teaching with IF on acquisition of four untaught repertoires in three
children with ASD. In one of the teaching cases, attending and tact responses of
visual stimuli were required. The emergence was partial for all learners, with no
great difference in the efficiency of the types of teaching. Two of the new repertoires
were not demonstrated. Errorless performance of some relations was shown by all,
but for only one child immediate emergence was verified. The results were
discussed regarding the possibility of new investigations on alternative procedure
to IF that could produce the emergence of new repertoires.
Keywords: autism spectrum disorder, primary target, untaught repertoires, instructive
feedback.
INTRODUCTION
Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) frequently show impairments in several non- verbal and verbal behavioral repertoires, demanding a comprehensive intervention curriculum
to ameliorate the deficits. According to Skinner [1], non-verbal and verbal operant behaviors
are shaped by consequences. These are called reinforcers when the likelihood of future
emission of the behaviors increases. Procedures in Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) commonly
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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal (ASSRJ) Vol. 11, Issue 1, January-2024
Services for Science and Education – United Kingdom
aims to establish repertoires in children with ASD through the arrangement of reinforcement
contingencies [2, 3]. A nonverbal operant is the product of interactions with the physical
environment (e.g., a child reaches out to grab a toy from a shelf). A verbal operant behavior is
shaped by a mediated reinforcing consequence. During a verbal episode, the speaker emits the
verbal behavior and the listener, specially trained by the verbal community, delivers a
reinforcer to the speaker (e.g., a child asks his mother for a cookie, and she allows him access).
Research on ABA focused on developing procedures to expand skill acquisition in children with
ASD. One case, called instructive feedback (IF), involves the definition of secondary target
during the teaching of primary target. As an example, a given child is taught to say “airplane”
upon the presentation of a picture of airplane (primary target). When he/she contacts
differential reinforcement (e.g., praise and a tangible item), the interventionist provides an IF
information (e.g., by saying “airplane is a transportation”). Thereafter, a probe shows that the
child can tact (label) the picture according to class (e.g., by saying “transportation”) and upon
the provision of a supplementary question (e.g., “what is an airplane?”). Tact is a type of verbal
behavior that involves the emission of a vocal verbal response under the control of a non-verbal
discriminative stimulus, and the response is maintained by a generalized conditioned
reinforcer (an established form of attention) [1]. In the case of the example presented, the tact
according to class as a new skill (secondary target) is established in the participant’s repertoire
without direct teaching, and it is considered that the variable IF plays a role in this. The
literature points out that IF increases instructional gains [4].
Recent investigations assessed the effects of providing IF information during the maintenance
teaching of primary targets previously established in learners’ repertoires. It is considered that
this kind of instructional arrangement can make the process of establishing secondary targets
without direct teaching less effortful [5-8]. Since primary target maintenance training with IF
was one of the concerns of the current research, it is important to describe the previous
literature in detail regarding the methodological characteristics and main results.
Tullis et al. [5], for two children with ASD as participants, compared different locations in which
IF information was administered during the reinforcement of primary targets. Primary and
secondary targets consisted of tact pictures and listener responding by function, feature, and
class (LRFFC), respectively. It was previously said that the tact is a type of verbal behavior [1].
LRFFC, in turn, represents a listener repertoire with the emission of non-verbal stimuli
selection responses based on instructions that specify function, feature or class to which the
stimuli belong [3, 9]. As an example, when an array of three different pictures is shown to a
learner (e.g., pictures representing soap, sharpener, and bottle), he/she must select the picture
corresponding to a given instruction (e.g., selecting the picture of soap under the verbal
instruction “show me toiletry”). No differential reinforcement was provided in LRFFC trials in
the study. Two sets of three pictures were defined for both primary and secondary targets.
The tact of all stimuli was previously established in the participants’ repertoire. In baseline,
both children did not demonstrate LRFFC responses (secondary targets), or performance
remained below 20% correct responses. During intervention condition, two treatments
(involving tact response maintenance training) were compared through an adapted alternating
treatments design. For one of the treatments, contingent to the emission of tact correct
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Matos, D. C., Loureiro, D. J. R., Silva, K. R., & Galvão, P. (2024). Comparison of Two Maintenance Training Arrangements with Instructive Feedback
in Children with Autism. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 11(1). 01-25.
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.111.16172
responses, IF information was provided and it was followed by praise (e.g., after saying “soap”
under the picture of soap, an experimenter said, “soap is a toiletry, good job!”).
The other treatment was administered similarly to the first, but, contingent to correct
responses, praise was delivered before the IF information (e.g., after saying “bag” under the
picture of bag, the experimenter said “well done! The bag has a handle”). For both treatments,
whenever a learning criterion was reached in three consecutive sessions, a probe to verify
emergence of secondary targets was administered 30 min later (other activities were
conducted with the children before the probes). As a result, the secondary targets for both
participants were acquired faster when, after the emission of primary targets in training, the IF
information was presented before praise. Since this one was the best treatment, it was
implemented for both sets of stimuli. The effects of training tact pictures with IF were lasting,
since, for one participant, maintenance of secondary targets was demonstrated for 16 weeks.
For the other participant, maintenance occurred for 18 weeks. The participants’ parents
considered the procedures highly effective and socially acceptable.
The authors discussed data in the sense that the effectiveness of the procedures with IF was, in
part, due to the occurrence of indiscriminable contingencies (learning by observation). They
also emphasized that the participants showed strong tact and echoic repertoires. The echoic
(vocal imitation) is a type of verbal behavior that involves the emission of a vocal verbal
response under the control of a vocal verbal discriminative stimulus with which it maintains
point-to-point correspondence, and the response is maintained by a generalized conditioned
reinforcer (e.g., an interventionist presents the instruction “say dog”. A learner then responds
“dog” and receives verbal praise) [1]. In the study, although the participants did not overtly
echo the IF information during primary target maintenance training, it is possible that they did
so covertly, which may have influenced acquisition of secondary targets. Finally, Tullis et al. [5]
also considered that the characteristics of instructional context possibly influenced acquisition
of secondary targets, since all sessions were conducted in an environment in which ABA
therapy sessions were typically provided to the participants. Plus, the experimenters were
professionals with whom they were familiar.
Frampton and Shillingsburg [6] assessed the effects of listener responding maintenance
training, with IF information in the consequent portion of the contingency (e.g., pointing to the
picture of the State of Tennessee under the instruction “show me Tennessee”). After a correct
listener response, it was provided an IF information (e.g., “Nashville is the name of the capital
of that State”) and the effects were assessed on acquisition of new multiple targets without
direct reinforcement in two children with ASD as participants. These new targets were the
following: 1) listener responding under control of a characteristic (e.g., selecting the picture of
Tennessee under the question “what is the capital of Nashville?”); 2) tact of a characteristic (e.g.,
saying “Nashville” in the presence of the picture of Tennessee and the question “what is the
capital of this State?”); 3) intraverbal (e.g., saying “Nashville” under the question “what is the
capital of Tennessee?”); 4) reverse intraverbal (e.g., saying “Tennessee under the question
“what State has Nashville as capital?”). The training of each of three sets of stimuli in the study
consisted of three primary target maintenance sessions with IF. After each series of three
sessions, a probe to verify emergence of the new multiple repertoires was administered. As a
result, until the third probe, nearly all new targets emerged for the two participants. The
acquisition of the new skills was not delayed, indicating the efficiency of the training with IF.