Matching visual stimuli : does similarity matter?

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2019

First Committee Member

Dickson, Chata

Second Committee Member

MacDonald, Rebecca

Third Committee Member

Pinkston, Jonathan

Abstract

"Since the first applications of behavior analysis to the teaching of children with autism, researchers and practitioners have sought to improve strategies for teaching stimulus relations to children with autism (McIlvane, Gerard, Kledaras, Mackay, & Lionello-DeNolf, 2016; Sidman & Stoddard, 1966). Matching related stimuli has been a foundational skill upon which various important repertoires are built. Perhaps most significantly, for some children with autism who have difficulty communicating through speech, learned relations between pictorial stimuli and their referents are the basis for communication (Hurlbut, Iwata, & Green, 1982; Shafer, 1993). Many of these children learn to engage in verbal behavior using augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) tools (McIlvane et al., 2016; Romski & Sevcik, 1997). These alternative communication tools primarily rely on two-dimensional images, hereafter, pictures, which the learner uses to interact verbally with others. Although some pictures share physical attributes with their real-world referents (e.g., photographs), allowing for the possibility of feature-based stimulus classes, arbitrary stimuli by contrast share no identifiable features and form arbitrary stimulus classes (e.g., written letters; McIlvane, Dube, Green, & Serna, 1993). Practical use of these pictures requires discrimination between various stimuli, learning relations between these stimuli and their real-world referents, and using a communication exchange system with communication partners in their environments to access real-world objects, persons, or activities (Lionello-DeNolf & McIlvane, 2016)."

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