A Comparison of Two Discrimination Training Procedures to Teach Receptive Labelling to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

The study compared receptive labeling involving conditional discriminations to children with autism. The study included six children ranging in age from 9-years to 13-years old with 50 or less receptive labels and 200 or more receptive labels. All participants were exposed to two sessions a day of the Structured Mix before Counterbalanced Random Rotation (SMCRR) procedure and Counterbalanced Random Rotation (CRR) procedure. The SMCRR procedure included five steps with mass trials, and intermixing of stimuli before randomization. The CRR procedure involved random order of stimuli from onset. Participants were exposed to one, two, or three stimulus sets using both conditions. Results indicated a mix in effectiveness with procedures, but altogether the SMCRR procedure required less trials, less prompts, but more errors. There is potential evidence for faulty stimulus control for participants who did not master the SMCRR procedure. This possibility merits further study.