There currently exists limited published literature on methods for teaching complex verbal operants to individuals with autism. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the PEAK – E curriculum in teaching receptive metonymical tacts using stimulus equivalence training procedures to children with autism. The procedures described in the PEAK – E program 10P – Equivalence: Metonymical Tacts were replicated across three children diagnosed with autism using a multiple baseline experimental design. The results of the suggest that the procedures were effective in teaching receptive metonymical tacts, with all three participants achieving mastery criteria. The results support and extend on previous studies by providing an empirical demonstration of effective procedures to teach receptive metonymical tacts to children with autism. The current study adds to progress behavior analysis in the direction of a behavior analytic understanding of complex verbal behavior.

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF BRITTNEY E. EBERHARDT, for the Master of Science degree in Behavior Analysis and Therapy, presented on August 2016, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: TEACHING IDIOMATIC EXPRESSIONS TO CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DELAYS USING THE PEAK RELATIONAL TRAINING SYSTEM MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Mark R. Dixon Idiomatic expressions are commonly used phrases, which require the listener to interpret the meaning figuratively rather than literally. The purpose of this study was to expand the research in the area of stimulus equivalence to determine whether untaught symmetrical and transitive responding in relation to idiomatic expressions would emerge for two participants with developmental delays. The first phase of the study involved directly training participants to respond with the statement (B stimuli; i.e.: “Go to bed.”) that corresponded with an intraverbal (A stimuli; i.e.: “What do you do at night after you put on your pajamas?”). After participants mastered these relationships, they were directly trained to respond with the idiomatic expression (C stimuli; i.e.: “Hit the hay”) when the experimenter verbally asked, “What is another way to say [A stimuli]?”. The results indicate that both participants achieved mastery criteria during the first phase of the study on A-B relations, however they were unable to demonstrate the derived equivalence A-C relation or C-B relation. After training on the B-C relationship, participants were again able to achieve criteria on the trained relationship and demonstrated some of the derived symmetrical relationships as well as derived transitive relationships. In addition, this study utilized the procedures from the PEAK-E relational training system to aid in replication in research and clinical practice.

The present study evaluated the effectiveness of stimulus equivalence procedures using the instructional protocols from the PEAK-E curriculum to develop the emergence of cause and effect relational responding in two children with autism. The procedures were taken from the PEAK-E program Transitivity: Multiple Actions & Outcomes-9p to aid in clinical replication. This study utilized a multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate the functional relationship between cause and effect relations. The results suggested that direct training of an action (A) to an outcome (B) (A-B) and direct training of an outcome (B) with an action that is produced by the outcome (C) (B-C) was effective for both participants. Following A-B and B-C training, the participants demonstrated emergent relations and untrained action (A) to action (C) relations which are consistent with transitivity. The results demonstrate efficacy of stimulus equivalence procedures for training cause and effect skills as well as the PEAK-E curriculum

In the present study, two children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were taught to identify reflexive relations across three varying stimuli using procedures outlined in the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Equivalence Module (PEAK-E). Two programs from the PEAK-E module were utilized, programs 2B and 3C, both of which incorporated reflexive relations utilizing two differing sensory modalities. Visual relations were directly trained to the participants while the tactile relations were derived and monitored through probes. The same three stimuli were utilized in both PEAK-E programs for each participant; however, those three stimuli varied across participants. All stimuli were retrieved from the participants’ environments and were familiar objects to the participants. The results indicate that only one sense mode, visual, required corrective feedback and praise in order for cross-modal transfer to occur for the second sense mode, tactile. Both participants demonstrated they acquired the reflexive skills for both visual and tactile stimuli. Participant 1 reached mastery criterion for both skills in 36 trials, and participant 2 reached mastery criterion within 20 trials. Limitations and future directions for implication of cross modal transfer are discussed.

The present study investigates the language phenomenon of stimulus equivalence in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Stimulus equivalence is comprised of 3 main concepts: reflexivity, symmetry, and transitivity. Specifically, the researcher evaluated the ability to teach, test, and transfer sequential reflexivity across two participants. Two 4-year-old children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder participated in the study. Methods were derived from the program: Reflexivity: Pictures – 2A, along with a yes/no response modification to suite both of the participant’s current level of developmental skills. The results suggest that the PEAK-E curriculum was effective in training and testing both children to establish reflexivity across stimulus set one. In addition, both participants demonstrated a transfer of stimulus function to an untrained stimulus set two once the trained stimulus set one was mastered.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a rival- model learning procedure on the acquisition of variations of color tacts and assessment of generalized tacting with children with autism. The participants IQs ranged from 49 to 63 and all were eleven years of age or younger. A multiple baseline across participants with embedded multiple probe was used. The child’s typical therapist functioned as an observational model but participants never received programmed consequences for responding related to the target behavior. The results of this study indicated that using a rival-model procedure produced accurate responding on trained stimuli tacting shades of color as well as generalized shades of color. This study adds to the limited amount of research published on the rival-model observational learning method with children with autism and related disabilities. Keywords: Autism, generalization, PEAK Relational Training System, rival-model,

The increasing prevalence of Autism Spectrum Disorder has produced a longstanding relevance for continued progressive measures towards a systematic approach to the treatment of deficient language repertoires. Current behavior analytic assessments, such as the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised (ABLLS-R), have demonstrated utility in providing relative measures of the functional characteristics of an individual’s language and learner repertoire, as consistent with a traditional Skinnerian approach. Further assessments have been created under other existing theoretical frameworks, such as the Test of Language Development (TOLD), and the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System (PEAK). Each assessment was run with 17 children with Autism. A Spearman’s rank order correlation was then conducted to examine the relationships between the ABBLS-R, the TOLD-I:4, and PEAK-E-PA. Therefore, the purpose of the present investigation was to examine any existing relationships between these assessments in order to evaluate their treatment utility, produced measures, and overall implications towards an understanding of language development in children with Autism.

Many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have difficulties identifying and labeling feelings and emotions of others. Three adolescent males all diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder participated in this study. In a multi-element design, the participants were trained to tact private events of others in context using novel video-based scenarios. Two of the three participants were able to increase and maintain their responding for all trained and derived relations, as well as a transformation of stimulus function task. The third participant required multiple exemplar training to novel stimuli to increase his responding for all the video-based scenarios. The results of the study support the utility of relational training for teaching children with autism to identify private events of others in context.

The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationship between indirect and direct assessments of language and cognitive skills using the PEAK Relational Training System (PEAK). 29 participants were administered the PEAK-Direct Training Pre-Assessment (PEAK-DT-PA) and the PEAK-Generalization Pre-Assessment (PEAK-G-PA). Of those 29 participants, 28 of their caregivers and 10 therapists completed an indirect assessment the 368 skills listed in the PEAK-DT and PEAK-G curricula. The results of the study suggest that there was a strong correlation between the pre-assessments and the indirect reports from both the parents and the therapists for both modules. Additional correlations and interrater reliability across factors and individual test items were also investigated. Finally, trends in interrater reliability between caregiver report and direct assessments suggest that caregivers reporting for participants with lower overall scores more reliably identified if their child had a deficit with an advanced skill, but could less reliably identify if their child had a more basic skill. The opposite trend was found for caregivers reporting on participants with greater overalls scores. Implications of these findings for clinicians and future research are discussed.

This study sought to evaluate the efficiency of the methods outlined in the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System Equivalence Module (PEAK-E) utilizing a single-subject design. Three participants from a Midwest town were recruited to participate in the study and were assessed and validity, reliability, and efficacy were evaluated to determine the assessments ability to identify three language skills that weren’t currently present in their repertoire. Baseline levels determined that the 3 skills for each participant (a total of 9 skills across the 3 participants) were not currently present in their repertoire prior to implementation of PEAK-E programs, as the participants demonstrated low levels of correct responding. Upon completion of program implementation across all three participants with autism, mastery criteria was obtained for all directly trained skills, and relations were derived for 9 out of 9 programs.