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Naturalistic antecedent control as a positive factor in the generalisation of newly acquired "play" behaviors in autistic children

University of British Columbia

Four developmentally handicapped (autistic) boys in a treatment centre for behavior disordered children were taught to perform colouring and block-assembly "play" responses within the discrete trial format training paradigm. Two specific training strategies were compared, one using naturalistic, materials-presentation antecedent cues, and the other contrived, verbal ones. Generalisation across comparable tasks with only naturalistic cueing was probed. Findings indicated that, with all participants, the choice of antecedent cues for training which were found in the generalisation condition was strongly related to the degree to which learning carried over. These results are discussed in context of a behavioural contrast account of failures to generalise, and suggestions for future remedial practice based upon the related topics of behavioural contrast and antecedent control are offered.

Text

2010-04-01

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/23300

Special Education

University of British Columbia

Graduate