Elenice S. Hanna

Diferenças individuais na aquisição de leitura com um sistema lingüístico em miniatura

This study reports the use of a miniature linguistic system in order to investigate reading acquisition. Twenty college students, 10 from Natural Sciences and Engineering (NSE) and 10 from Health and Social Sciences (HSS) courses, learned to relate pictures and printed pseudo-words to dictated pseudo-words in conditional discrimination tasks presented by a computer. Teaching sessions were interspersed with tests of reading new words formed by recombination of elements of taught words (generative recombination). Nine students from NSE and four from HSS developed generalized reading after learning 12 relations with pseudo-words. Reading scores of new words increased as number of taught words increased. Both findings could be interpreted as effects of learning experiences with symbolic relations. Differences between the NSE and the HSS students could also reflect motivational factors.

Recombinative reading derived from pseudoword instruction in a miniature linguistic system

A miniature linguistic system was used to study acquisition of recombinative symbolic behavior. Three studies evaluated the teaching conditions of conditional discriminations with printed and spoken pseudowords that could potentially generate recombinative reading. Fifty-four college students across all studies learned to match 12 printed pseudowords to 12 spoken pseudowords. Some also matched pictures to the same spoken words. Each two-syllable pseudoword was formed by symbols from an arbitrarily created alphabet composed of four vowels and four consonants. Letters had univocal correspondence with phonemes. Recombinative receptive reading, comprehensive reading, and textual responding to pseudowords were periodically assessed. Experiment 1 (n  =  20) showed that recombinative reading increased as the number of trained words composed of the same symbols increased. Experiment 2 (n  =  14) showed that overtraining the same two words did not produce recombinative reading for most participants. Experiment 3 (n  =  20), in which training with pictures was omitted, showed that elemental control by within-syllable units can develop even when the trained pseudowords are meaningless (not related to pictures). The present results support the utility of the miniature linguistic system methodology for identifying and controlling environmental determinants of rudimentary reading skills.

Análise do Comportamento no Brasil

Behaviorism is the philosophy of a science interested on the subject and method of psychology. Behavior analysis is not a field of psychology; it is a way to study the object of psychology. Behavior analysis in Brazil started when Fred S. Keller came to work at the University of Sao Paulo and the University of Brasilia in the 60s. Brazil has the largest behavior analysis community outside the United States. Brazilian researchers publish in the best national and international journals. The pioneers in behavior analysis were also responsible for the recognition of psychology as a profession, the foundation of the first laboratories in the country, and the foundation of the Brazilian Council of Psychology and the Brazilian Psychological Society.

Leitura recombinativa de pseudopalavras impressas em pseudoalfabeto: similaridade entre palavras e extensão da unidade ensinada

Controle discriminativo por elementos textuais e requisito para a leitura de palavras novas (leitura recombinativa). Este estudo empregou pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas em pseudo-alfabeto para avaliar os efeitos da similaridade entre palavras e da extensao da unidade textual ensinada sobre o desenvolvimento de leitura recombinativa. No Experimento 1 universitarios aprenderam relacoes condicionais entre pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas que diferiam das incorretas em 25% ou 75% dos elementos. No Experimento 2 outros universitarios aprenderam a relacionar letras ou silabas ditadas as correspondentes modalidades impressas e subsequentemente aprenderam relacoes envolvendo pseudopalavras. A aquisicao das discriminacoes foi mais rapida na Condicao Diferenca 75%; a leitura recombinativa dependeu da quantidade de palavras ensinadas (Exp.1). A leitura foi mais precisa apos a aprendizagem de silabas, mas ocorreu mais recombinacao apos a aprendizagem de letras (Exp. 2). Combinar o ensino de palavras dissimilares e de unidades menores que a palavra pode acelerar a leitura recombinativa.

EMERGÊNCIA DE CLASSES DE EQUIVALÊNCIA APÓS SEPARAÇÃO E RECOMBINAÇÃO DOS ESTÍMULOS COMPOSTOS UTILIZADOS NO TREINO

Two studies taught college students to discriminate compound stimuli and assessed the emergence of equivalence classes using two different test procedures. In both studies, compound stimuli were presented in simple simultaneous discrimination (SSD) training and the emergence of equivalence classes was tested using both SSD and matching so sample procedures. The studies differed in the number of classes trained/tested. In Experiment 1, four out of nine participants showed the emergence of transitive and equivalence relations. In Experiment 2, all five participants showed the emergence of all relations tested. There was no difference in the results as a function of test type. The results provide empirical support for the notion that elements of a compound stimulus can be separated and recombined without disruption in discriminative control. Key-words: Simple simultaneous discrimination, compound stimuli, emergence of arbitrary relations, undergraduate students.

Recombinative reading of pseudo-words printed with a pseudo-alphabet: similarity between words and teaching unit size

Controle discriminativo por elementos textuais e requisito para a leitura de palavras novas (leitura recombinativa). Este estudo empregou pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas em pseudo-alfabeto para avaliar os efeitos da similaridade entre palavras e da extensao da unidade textual ensinada sobre o desenvolvimento de leitura recombinativa. No Experimento 1 universitarios aprenderam relacoes condicionais entre pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas que diferiam das incorretas em 25% ou 75% dos elementos. No Experimento 2 outros universitarios aprenderam a relacionar letras ou silabas ditadas as correspondentes modalidades impressas e subsequentemente aprenderam relacoes envolvendo pseudopalavras. A aquisicao das discriminacoes foi mais rapida na Condicao Diferenca 75%; a leitura recombinativa dependeu da quantidade de palavras ensinadas (Exp.1). A leitura foi mais precisa apos a aprendizagem de silabas, mas ocorreu mais recombinacao apos a aprendizagem de letras (Exp. 2). Combinar o ensino de palavras dissimilares e de unidades menores que a palavra pode acelerar a leitura recombinativa.

La lectura con recombinación de pseudopalabras impresas en pseudo-alfabeto: semejanza entre las palabras y el tamaño de la unidad enseñada

Controle discriminativo por elementos textuais e requisito para a leitura de palavras novas (leitura recombinativa). Este estudo empregou pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas em pseudo-alfabeto para avaliar os efeitos da similaridade entre palavras e da extensao da unidade textual ensinada sobre o desenvolvimento de leitura recombinativa. No Experimento 1 universitarios aprenderam relacoes condicionais entre pseudopalavras ditadas e impressas que diferiam das incorretas em 25% ou 75% dos elementos. No Experimento 2 outros universitarios aprenderam a relacionar letras ou silabas ditadas as correspondentes modalidades impressas e subsequentemente aprenderam relacoes envolvendo pseudopalavras. A aquisicao das discriminacoes foi mais rapida na Condicao Diferenca 75%; a leitura recombinativa dependeu da quantidade de palavras ensinadas (Exp.1). A leitura foi mais precisa apos a aprendizagem de silabas, mas ocorreu mais recombinacao apos a aprendizagem de letras (Exp. 2). Combinar o ensino de palavras dissimilares e de unidades menores que a palavra pode acelerar a leitura recombinativa.