A comparison of operant discrimination training and stimulus-stimulus pairing procedures to increase vocalizations of children with autism

Abstract

This study sought to compare the effectiveness of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure (SSP) and an operant discrimination training (ODT) procedure on increasing target vocalizations of 3 boys with autism, and identify individual preference for each procedure. During SSP, auditory stimuli were presented in a manner that reliably predicted the delivery of a preferred stimulus. During ODT, auditory stimuli were presented in a manner that signaled the availability of reinforcement for engaging in an arbitrarily selected response. A control condition was also included that involved presenting auditory stimuli explicitly unpaired with the delivery of the preferred item. The procedure preference evaluation consisted of a concurrent operants selection procedure. Results indicate that both procedures were effective for increasing the target vocalizations in 5 out of 6 cases, and that all participants preferred ODT to SSP.