Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, June, 2007. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2006. / "May, 2006." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 50-55). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (Ed. D.)--Illinois State University, 1980. / Title from title page screen, viewed March 10, 2005. Dissertation Committee: Max R. Rennels (chair), Barry Moore, Richard A. Salome, Leon Manelis, Macon Williams. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 23-24) and abstract. Also available in print.

Autism is a neurological disorder which impairs the individual's social interactions and communication. Such impairments lead to deficits in learning which accumulate over time. Finding effective and efficient technologies to teach children with autism helps to minimize deficits and teach children new skills to be independent learners. There is previous research on technologies such as discrete trail training (DTT), antecedent based interventions, and consequence based interventions which have to be shown to be effective, however, more research is needed to find more cost effective and efficient procedures.. The PEAK Stimulus Equivalence Training Module seeks to teach children with Autism in a concise easy to follow manual. Past research has shown stimulus equivalence to not only effectively teach children with autism novel skills, but also has shown the emergence of untrained relations. The present study uses the PEAK module with three boys with autism, between the ages of 6 and 8, to teach novel stimuli including, planets, holidays, and sports teams and to test for the emergence of untrained relations. Results showed that the all participants demonstrated derived relations. Implications for future research are discussed.

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) language repertoire development varies greatly amongst each individual especially in one’s ability to understand emotions. One way to increase language development and further understand emotions is through stimulus equivalence. Theis present study examined the effefficacy of a stimulus equivalence training procedure in bringing the recognition of others’ emotions under multiple contextual control, and also evaluated co-occurring changes in the flexibility of participant responses to common questions requiring emotional recognition that is multiply controlled. The procedures were taken from the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Equivalence Module (PEAK-E) to aid in replication both clinically and in research. The results suggest that each of the three participants, all with an autism diagnosis, were able to identify the facial expressions of others when provided with a person and a context (i.e., What face does Person A feel at Location B?). In addition, two of the three participants were able to correctly identify an individual when provided with a context and an emotion (i.e., Who feels Emotion A at Location C?). Results from the flexibility probes throughout the study however indicate that the participants did not demonstrate an increase vin flexible responding following equivalence training. ectiveness of stimulus equivalence under multiple control to promote the emergence of an untrained relation via the PEAK – E Curriculum: Feelings in Context. Three participants diagnosed with autism, between the ages 12 and 17, were directly trained nine relations that established under a specific context a person will make a certain facial expression. Results indicate that all three participants demonstrated mastery in the training condition; however, when tested for equivalence only two of three participants were able to do so.

Two adults with intellectual disabilities were taught practical money skills within a stimulus equivalence training procedure taken from the PEAK equivalence relational training system. The participants were taught to accurately count and select combinations of money of five different values, in the presence of an object worth a specific value and combinations of coins worth the same value. The results of this study found that the PEAK program 12L: Monetary Exchange was successful in training two adults with intellectual disabilities and other co-occurring disorders how to accurately count five values as well as derive relations between two values and an object. The first participant mastered two complete levels of stimuli whereas the second participant mastered on complete level of stimuli before training was terminated due to behavioral variables.

No description available.

Psychologists interested in the study of language find that people are faster at making decisions about words that are related than they are at making decisions about words that are not related – an effect called semantic priming. This phenomenon has largely only been document in laboratory settings using natural languages as contest and real words as stimuli. The current study explores the relation between the semantic priming effect and a laboratory procedure designed to give rise to performances that can be described as linguistic. Six adult participants learned to partition a collection of eight stimuli into two sets of four stimuli. Following this, the subjects showed the semantic priming effect within a set of stimuli but not across sets. These data suggest that it may be possible to study linguistic phenomenon in laboratory-based procedures allowing better control and the ability to ask very precise questions about linguistic functioning.

Events that occur early in the life of birds greatly influence social and sexual preferences throughout the course of life. Traditionally, this is explained by a learning process known as imprinting. Young birds are thought to imprint to early stimuli, causing the development of permanent preferences for those stimuli. In the present study, imprinting is examined with respect to behaviors of an adult human-reared pigeon in several conditions. The subject was either presented with no stimulus, a conspecific stimulus, a novel stimulus, a human stimulus, or the human and novel stimuli simultaneously. Several phases within these conditions were employed to pinpoint the variables that produced the most social and sexual behavior. The results showed that while some conditions produced unclear behavior, other conditions produced very clear indications of sexual preference for humans and fear of conspecifics. The results suggest that the concept of imprinting may not be needed to explain the sexual preference of the subject, and that operant contingencies may play a large role in sexual behavior.

Stimulus overselectivity is said to occur when behavior is under the control of a restricted set of stimuli from a stimulus complex. Three studies investigated the effects of specific multiple-stimulus training histories upon the overselective responding of normal preschool children. In Experiment 1, eight children 3 to 5 years of age, were trained to discriminate forms presented on cards. Each form was labelled with a nonsense syllable, and each card (multiple stimulus) consisted of two forms. A time-delay training procedure was used. Four subjects were trained using Concurrent training in which two of the three S- response choices contained components of the S+. Four subjects were trained using Sequential training in which the choices did not contain S+ components, but S+s were trained in order such that one component of a previously- trained S+ was present in the next S+. Subjects trained using Concurrent training acquired the discriminations in fewer trials, and had fewer errors during training. However, they responded to single components at chance level, whereas subjects trained using Sequential training recognized components and were able to recombine them into novel combinations. Experiment 2 was designed to investigate the effects of interspersing component probes among review trials of previously learned S+s that contained those components. Responses of two subjects to components were probed with interspersed review trials. Subjects with a Sequential training history demonstrated higher levels of correct responding to recombinations of components, whereas subjects with a Concurrent history continued to respond at chance level. In Experiment 3, two subjects with a history of Concurrent training were trained using Sequential training. The subjects learned to respond to recombinations and components at criterion level. It was concluded that multiple-stimulus training, in which S+ components are presented sequentially, is an effective method for training subjects to respond to components as well as to the total multiple stimulus. Findings are discussed in relation to: (a) attention theory and implications for related areas, such as stimulus salience and functionality; (b) a reassessment of the definition of overselectivity; and (c) implications for research with other populations.