Ruth Anne Rehfeldt

Understanding complex behavior: the transformation of stimulus functions.

The transformation of stimulus functions is said to occur when the functions of one stimulus alter or transform the functions of another stimulus in accordance with the derived relation between the two, without additional training. This effect has been demonstrated with a number of derived stimulus relations, behavioral functions, experimental preparations, and subject populations. The present paper reviews much of the existing research on the transformation of stimulus functions and outlines a number of important methodological and conceptual issues that warrant further attention. We conclude by advocating the adoption of the generic terminology of relational frame theory to describe both the derived transformation of stimulus functions and relational responding more generally.

Assessing Relational Learning Deficits in Perspective-Taking in Children with High-Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder.

Perspective-taking, or the ability to demonstrate awareness of informational states in oneself and in others, has been of recent interest in behavioral psychology. This is, in part, a result of a modern behavioral approach to human language and cognition known as Relational Frame Theory, which views perspectivetaking as generalized operant behavior based upon a history of reinforcement for relational responding. Previous lines of research have developed a behavioral protocol for assessing relational learning deficits in perspective-taking and have implicated the lack of perspective-taking as a basis for the social deficits observed in children with autism. However, no empirical investigations have been conducted on relational learning deficits in perspective-taking with autistic populations. The present paper reports 2 experiments that investigated whether children with autism spectrum disorder demonstrated relational learning deficits in a perspective-taking task as compared to their age-matched typicalill developing peers. We also investigated whether accuracy in perspective-taking correlated with scores on standardized instruments commonly used in the assessment of autism spectrum disorder, and whether relational responding in perspective-taking improves following a history of reinforcement for such responding. Results of Experiment 1 demonstrated statistically significant differences in errors as a function of type of relation, while visual inspection revealed that partiCipants with autism spectrum disorder made more errors than typically developing children on 2 of the 3 types of relations examined. Results of Experiment 2 illustrated that a history of reinforced relational responding improved performance on the perspective-taking task.

TOWARD A TECHNOLOGY OF DERIVED STIMULUS RELATIONS: AN ANALYSIS OF ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS, 1992–2009

Every article on stimulus equivalence or derived stimulus relations published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis was evaluated in terms of characteristics that are relevant to the development of applied technologies: the type of participants, settings, procedure (automated vs. tabletop), stimuli, and stimulus sensory modality; types of relations targeted and emergent skills demonstrated by participants; and presence versus absence of evaluation of generalization and maintenance. In most respects, published reports suggested the possibility of applied technologies but left the difficult work of technology development to future investigations, suggestions for which are provided.

Evaluating Stress Levels of Parents of Children with Disabilities

Research has shown that the interactions of parents with their children with disabilities can have a profound impact on the progress that a child makes in his or her therapeutic or educational programs. For this reason, we argue that an important component of the screening and assessment process is a measure of the stress level experienced by parents. We provide an overview of the different assessment instruments currently used to evaluate stress in parents of children with disabilities, and make recommendations for further research and/or professional use of each instrument.

THE EFFECTS OF BEHAVIORAL SKILLS TRAINING ON IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PICTURE EXCHANGE COMMUNICATION SYSTEM

The effectiveness of a behavioral skills training (BST) package to teach the implementation of the first three phases of the picture exchange communication system (PECS) was evaluated with 3 adults who had no history teaching any functional communication system. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to evaluate the effectiveness of the training package, which consisted of a video, written and verbal instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Results showed significant improvements relative to baseline in a short amount of training time and that skills generalized to a learner with a severe developmental disability. Skills were maintained at 1 month follow-up for 1 participant.

USING THE STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE PARADIGM TO TEACH COURSE MATERIAL IN AN UNDERGRADUATE REHABILITATION COURSE

In 2 experiments, we examined whether the stimulus equivalence instructional paradigm could be used to teach relations among names, definitions, causes, and common treatments for disabilities using a selection-based intraverbal training format. Participants were pre- and posttested on vocal intraverbal relations and were trained using multiple-choice worksheets in which selection-based intraverbal relations were taught and feedback was delivered until mastery. Most participants in Experiment 1 showed the emergence of vocal intraverbal relations, but responding did not generalize to final written intraverbal tests. Participants in Experiment 2 showed the emergence of not only vocal intraverbal relations but also written intraverbal relations on final tests. Results suggest that the stimulus equivalence paradigm can be effectively implemented using a selection-based intraverbal training format, the protocol may be an effective means of emphasizing important concepts in a college course, and emergent skills may generalize to novel response topographies.

AN EVALUATION OF THE STIMULUS EQUIVALENCE PARADIGM TO TEACH SINGLE-SUBJECT DESIGN TO DISTANCE EDUCATION STUDENTS VIA BLACKBOARD

The purpose of the current study was to examine the degree to which instruction based on stimulus equivalence procedures could be used to teach single-subject design methodology to graduate-level professionals through a Web-based course management system known as Blackboard (see http://www.blackboard.com). Specifically, we used the stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach relations among the names, definitions, graphical representations of the designs, and two practical scenarios of when it would be appropriate to implement each design. Most participants demonstrated the emergence of untaught relations, and some participants showed generalization to novel vignettes and graphs. Relations largely were not maintained at follow-up but were retaught.

Using stimulus equivalence technology to teach emotion recognition to adults with acquired brain injury.

The purpose of this study was to use stimulus equivalence technology to teach emotion recognition skills to three adults with acquired brain injuries. A pre-test, post-test design was employed to test for acquisition of the facial recognition skills after training. Computer presentation of the stimuli was used. A pre-test was conducted, in which participants’ abilities to expressively label facial representations of emotions and match distinct representations of emotions to other representations depicting the same emotion were examined. Next, participants received matching-to-sample training, in which they were first taught to receptively identify the facial representations of the basic emotions happiness, sadness and anger. They were then taught to receptively identify facial representations of those same emotions that were different from the first representations. When mastery criterion was attained, a post-test identical to the pre-test was presented. Results showed that the participants were able to demonstrate increased facial-emotional recognition skills after training.

CONSTRUCTING AND DERIVING RECIPROCAL TRIGONOMETRIC RELATIONS: A FUNCTIONAL ANALYTIC APPROACH

Participants were pretrained and tested on mutually entailed trigonometric relations and combinatorially entailed relations as they pertained to positive and negative forms of sine, cosine, secant, and cosecant. Experiment 1 focused on training and testing transformations of these mathematical functions in terms of amplitude and frequency followed by tests of novel relations. Experiment 2 addressed training in accordance with frames of coordination (same as) and frames of opposition (reciprocal of) followed by more tests of novel relations. All assessments of derived and novel formula-to-graph relations, including reciprocal functions with diversified amplitude and frequency transformations, indicated that all 4 participants demonstrated substantial improvement in their ability to identify increasingly complex trigonometric formula-to-graph relations pertaining to same as and reciprocal of to establish mathematically complex repertoires.

Exploring the development and dismantling of equivalence classes involving terrorist stimuli

The present paper describes 2 studies that present a conceptual interpretation and experimental findings involving the developing and dismantling of equivalence cl’asses consisting of terrorist stimuli. In the first study, 8 United States citizen participants were trained to match nonterrorist stimuli to American and terrorist images. Afterwards, participants were tested for derived relations between American and terrorist stimuli. Results revealed all participants had a high probability of making predictable responses across culturally framed stimuli during a pretest (i.e., match American to American and terrorist to terrorist), yet after training, made fewer culturally controlled responses during the posttest. The second study examined the acquisition rate and resulting equivalence test performance of 7 United States citizen participants who received training with 3 sets of visual stimuli that consisted of (a) terrorist, (b) mixed terrorist/American, and (c) neutral (flowers) images. Most participants acquired the relations involving the terrorist stimuli in fewer trials and scored with higher accuracy during testing when compared to their performance on the other two sets (mixed terrorist/American, flowers). Implications for various theories of stimulus equivalence are discussed.