Comparing Skill Acquisition Under Different Stimulus Set Sizes With Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Replica
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Comparing Skill Acquisition Under Different Stimulus Set Sizes With Adolescents With Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Replication Jason C. Vladescu 1
&
Danielle Gureghian 2 & Lauren Goodwyn 1 & Alexandra M. Campanaro 1
Accepted: 11 September 2020 # Association for Behavior Analysis International 2020
Abstract A number of variables may influence the effectiveness and efficiency of skill acquisition. One variable that may be important is set size. The current study replicated and extended Kodak et al. (2020, “A Comparison of Stimulus Set Size on Tact Training for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder,” Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 53(1), 265–283) by evaluating the stimulus set size that led to the most efficient skill acquisition for 2 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder. More specifically, we evaluated tact acquisition in stimulus set sizes of 3, 6, and 12. The set sizes of 3 and 6 stimuli were associated with the most efficient acquisition, whereas the set size of 12 stimuli was not. Keywords Autism spectrum disorder . Efficiency . Skill acquisition . Stimulus set size . Tacts
Discrete-trial instruction (DTI) is a frequently used procedure to establish new responses for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). DTI involves training one or more unique responses, where the number of responses targeted simultaneously has been referred to as “stimulus set size” (Kodak et al., 2020). Practitioners and researchers implementing DTI may consider stimulus set size because this variable may influence the development of stimulus control (Kodak et al., 2020). Kodak et al. (2020) compared tact acquisition under stimulus set sizes of three, four, six, and twelve. Although all stimulus set size conditions were effective, the six- and twelve-stimuli conditions were most efficient across participants. One variable that may have influenced the results of Kodak et al. was that the mastery criterion employed required participants to emit fewer independent responses across stimuli as the set size increased. For example, in the four-stimuli condition, participants had to engage in six consecutive independent responses, whereas in the twelve-stimuli condition, participants had to engage in two consecutive independent responses to meet the mastery criterion. The purpose of the
* Jason C. Vladescu [email protected] 1
Department of Applied Behavior Analysis, Caldwell University, 120 Bloomfield Avenue, Caldwell, NJ 07006, USA
2
Garden Academy, Caldwell University, West Orange, NJ, USA
current study was to replicate and extend Kodak et al. by evaluating tact acquisition in stimulus set sizes of three, six, and twelve. In addition, we required the same number of independent responses across stimuli for all conditions, as opposed to Kodak et al., where the number of independent responses across stimuli differed across conditions.
Method Participants Two adolescents diagnosed with ASD participated in the study. Both participants received services based on the principles of applied behavior analysis
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