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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.