Using matrix training to promote the generalization of waiting

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2012

First Committee Member

Dickson, Chata

Second Committee Member

Hanley, Gregory

Third Committee Member

MacDonald, Rebecca

Abstract

"Waiting, refraining from disruptive behavior during a period of time when reinforcement is unavailable, is a social skill that fails to develop normally in individuals with autism. Self-control training has been used to increase delay to reinforcement; however this training technique does not program explicitly for generalization. Matrix training focuses on generalization and acquisition of new skills. A matrix refers to a table constructed such that unique combinations can be formed by selecting an item from each dimension of the table. This method consists of structured training sets as well as probes across untrained combinations within the matrix. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the utility of matrix training as a method for promoting generalization of waiting across contexts. The primary discriminative stimulus utilized in this study was the verbal instruction “wait.” The focus of the current study was twofold: to increase duration of waiting and to increase generalization of this skill across combinations of settings and physical orientations. Matrix training was implemented to teach waiting to two children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) across three setting--orientation combinations. Following training, recombinative generalization of waiting across untrained combinations was observed in both participants."

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