In the latest issue of Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior Davison and Elliffe systematically replicated Shanan and Podlesnik 2006 study where they used a conditional-discrimination procedure to investigated the division of stimulus control in relation to reinforcer frequency.
Even if this study is basic animal experiment it may provide useful information in understanding stimulus control, and the results indicate that the degree of stimulus control is dependent on reinforcer differentiation, and are gradient – not all-or-none. As they states in their discussion:
it suggests simply that the degree of stimulus control of choice by dimension-specific stimuli depended on the frequency of reinforcers for correct responses to that dimension relative to reinforcers for conditional control by the other dimensions.
Link to the article; http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/abstracts/JeabAbstracts/94/_94-013.Htm
In studying relational responding within Relational Frame Theory, the matching to sample procedure is the most commonly used. There has been are are used several procedures that relies on matching to sample, such as stimulus pairing, multi element compound stimuli, constructed response protocols and variations of simultaneous discrimination. As an alternative methodology some studies have used the Relational Evaluation Procedure, and based on this the Relational Completion Procedure.
In this number of Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior Simon Dymond and Robert Whelan have published a study comparing the match-to-sample procedure and the relational completion procedure. This article gives a thourogh and good description of the different procedures, and their possible benefits and shortcomings as an introduction to the study they have conducted.
In their study their findings support the further development of the relational completion procedure within Relational Frame Theory, and that the use of a confirmatory response in training of relational responding had a facilitative effect. Hopefully there will come further studies examining the different procedures in establishing arbitrary relational responding.
Link to the article http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/abstracts/JeabAbstracts/94/_94-037.Htm
Lang et al published in the recent number of Behavior Modification a study on abolishing operations intervention to reduce stereotypy and challenging behavior during play skills intervention for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). Finding that when children with ASD were allowed a period were they freely could engage in stereotypic behavior before intervention, the level of stereotypy and challenging behavior were lower and funcional play skills were higher during intervention.
The play intervention included modeling, promping, and reinforcing play behavior i addition to redriecting stereotypy and challenging behavior to apporpriate play behaviors. The study researched te effect of adding a reinfocer-abolsining element would increase this research-based intervention´s effect.
Based on this study the researchers suggest two points; first, that the described play intervention is potentially effecktive, and secondly that when a play intervention is planned for children who frequently display stereotypic behavior is may be beneficial to allow a period were children can freely display stereotypy before the intervention.
All working or living with children with autism recognize the diagnostic feature of repetitive and invariant behavior. And the research on interventions for such behavioral have been somewhat limited.
In the current volume of Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis Napolitano, Smith, Zarcone, Goodkin and McAdam have published research on increasing response diversity in children with autism. Their intervention used a lag reinforcement schedule (reinforce responses different from previous) to increase the diversity. Some of the participants in this study also received prompting and additional teaching.
This procedure increased diversity on block building with the participants, indication that lag reinforcement schedules may be useful in increasing diversity.
Cassidy, Roche and O´Hara has published an article proposing a framework that provides a rationale for the construction of interventions to raise IQ as they are measured by traditional intelligence test. This proposes that training skills in derived relational responding through multiple exemplar training can raise IQ-scores. This article is published in European Journal of Behavior Analysis (2010).
In this article the authors by using relational frame theory (RTF) to decompose the minimalistic construct of intelligence to its component behavior and identify the environment – behavior relations involved. And based on this, it may be that a small variety of arbitrary relations in combination may be sufficient to yield the full gamut of cognitive skills associated with the term intelligence.
Based on the position that relational responding and cognitive abilities may be functionally related the authors deconstruct IQ test to identify the generalized behaviors that are measured. They provide examples from several relational frames or types of relational responding; i.e. Coordination, opposition, etc. and the combinations of those.
And by referring to not yet published research showing interventions to raise IQ-scores the state:
MET involves training children in core relational skills, such as deriving relations in accordance with a wide variety of relational frames and across a vary large number of exemplars. Once such component relational skills are established and sufficiently generalized across novels stimulus sets, a child should be able to respond appropriately to an almost infinite number of similar relational tasks. Consequently, their ability to respond appropriately to the relational task presented in common IQ tests should be enhanced.