de Rose, J. C., de Souza, D. G., & Hanna, E. S. (1996).
Teaching reading and spelling: Exclusion and stimulus equivalence.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
29, 451-469.
In Experiment 1, 7 nonreading children were exposed to a program
designed to teach reading of 51 training words. The program
featured an exclusion-based procedure in which the children (a)
matched printed to dictated words and (b) constructed (copied)
printed words with movable letters and named them. All children
learned to read the training words. Five children also read
generalization words and showed progress in spelling. Experiment
2 applied the program to 4 different children, omitting the
word-construction task. They also learned to read the training
words, but only 1 participant read generalization words. The data
support a stimulus equivalence account of reading acquisition and
suggest that reading generalization may be obtained, especially
when the teaching program includes word construction.
DESCRIPTORS: reading, spelling, stimulus equivalence,
recombination of textual units, exclusion, matching to sample,
children