Anna Ingeborg Petursdottir, James E. Carr, Sarah A. Lechago, & Season M. Almason. (2008).
An evaluation of intraverbal training and listener training for teaching categorization skills.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
41, 053-068.
The effects of vocal intraverbal training and listener training on the
emergence of untrained categorization skills were evaluated. Five
typically developing preschool children initially learned to name a
number of previously unfamiliar visual stimuli. Each child then received
one of two types of training. Intraverbal training involved reinforcing
vocally emitted category names by the child in the presence of a spoken
exemplar name. Listener training involved reinforcing the selection of
visual stimuli by the child in the presence of a spoken category name.
A multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the effects of training
on each child’s intraverbal category naming and stimulus selection. Pre-
and posttests were used to assess additional emergent relations. Four of 5 participants
did not demonstrate the emergence of
any untrained relations. The current findings suggest that additional
research is needed to determine the optimal sequencing of conditions
in programs designed to teach categorization skills.
DESCRIPTORS: categorization, functional independence,
intraverbals, listener behavior, language training