Further Analysis of the Order of Stimulus Presentation in Receptive Language Instruction

Abstract

Receptive language training programs are commonly used in clinical settings to build the vocabularies of both typically developing children and those with autism. Conflicting recommendations exist in the literature regarding the optimal order of stimulus presentations in receptive instructional trials. The present study was a systematic replication of previous research (Petursdottir & Aguilar, 2016) that found an advantage of presenting the auditory sample before the visual comparisons in typically developing children. Unlike the previous study, the present study incorporated an error correction procedure in the form of a prompted trial following incorrect responses. Four typically developing 5- and 6-year-old boys participated. A sample-first condition presented the auditory sample before the visual comparisons. The comparison-first condition presented the comparisons before the sample. Acquisition in the two conditions was compared in an adapted alternating-treatments design with a replication across stimulus sets. Unlike the previous study, the present study did not show a consistent advantage of the sample-first condition. More research is needed to determine the contribution of stimulus presentation, prompting procedures, and other components of instructional trials to acquisition in receptive tasks.