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
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.
In the recent issue of The Behavior Analyst, no 32 – 2009, Stewart and McElwee brings up an interesting and potentially important point in describing and reporting research on relational responding; the use of terminology. As with all behavior analytic, and should be with all other research, the use of standardized terminology is a precondition for replication and for applying the research in practice. So it´s an important issue to address.
Stewart and McElwee reviews two papers, Berens and Hayes (2009) and Fin and Harrington (2007), where both studies has been using a procedures to establish contextual cues for generalizing relational responding. But there is according to Stewart and McElwee an inconsistency in the use of term, as I quite agree on.
And I really find it useful to adapt their conclusion and suggestion to a solution to avoid such inconsistencies in the future:
labeling in studies on relational responding should focus on the functional target of the protocol with respect to the behavior of the experimental subject rather than on some alternative feature of the protocol.
This of course not in conflict with investigating different aspects of teaching protocols, but as a mean to uphold a consistent terminology supporting applying the findings and replication.
It´s common knowledge that failure to develop joint attention skills is one of the core deficits for children with autism, and there is a growing body of research addressing this issue, both in the behavioral literature and within other theoretical directions. This research has been successful in establishing response to joint attention, but establishing a flexible and relevant repertoire of initiations to joint attentions has shown to be a greater challenge.
Jones (2009) has in Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders published two studies on establishing initiations to joint attention. One addressing the form, and one addressing the stimulus classes.
The first study teached children with autism increasingly more sophisticated forms of joint attention behaviors. Starting with gaze alternating, then gaze alternating and pointing and finally gaze alternating, pointing and verbalization. These skills were established with already established teaching methods outlined in other studies. The second study teached children with autism to respond to more stimuli and to both adults and peers.
These studies shows the possibility to teach an increasingly more sophisticated class of responses, and expand the range of stimuli that occasion joint attention, and adding to the behavioral literature on joint attention. These studies includes two children, calling for more research on this subject.
I have the recent months been trying out a modified version of McHugh and Barnes-Holmes protocol for teaching the derived relational responding involved in Perspective taking. I have included some task from Weiss (2001), but essentially it´s a translated protocol from these two sources. I have also included some extra prompting-steps in the protocol.
The main challenge I have meet in the implementation of this protocol is to determined what prerequisite skills children need to master before starting this training, as some of the children I believed should master the protocol failed at the start of the protocol. So far it seems that these skills has to be mastered before starting the protocol:
- being able to respond with only social reinforcement
- being able to follow verbal instructions containing three steps
- being able to listen to a story, of at least 5 sentences, and correctly answer questions about the content.
- being able to tact most common objects
- being able to respond according to the relational frames of Coordination, Distinction, Opposition, Comparison and Hierarchy.
I quite convinced there are more prerequisite skills, but I´m still in the progress of determining them.