Using antecedent manipulations to distinguish between task and social variables associated with problem behaviors exhibited by children of typical development.

In the antecedent functional assessment literature, researchers have introduced task demands and social attention simultaneously while varying the level of task difficulty. Though research has demonstrated situations in which a combination of social and task antecedents occasion socially avoidant responses from children with disabilities, no current studies have been offered to assess the impact of high levels of adult attention devoid of task demands on problem behaviors exhibited by children of typical development. A multiple element design was used to assess the specific effects of task and social antecedents on the problem behaviors of four children of typical development. Results identified two children whose behavior was associated with a combination of difficult task demands and attention in the form of commands and redirections and two children whose behavior was associated only with high levels of adult attention that did not include commands or redirections. These results suggest that antecedent functional assessment procedures can assess the impact of high levels of attention without the presence of task demands.

Recombinative generalization of within-syllable units in prereading children.

This study demonstrates recombinative generalization of within-syllable units in prereading children. Three kindergarten children learned to select printed consonant-vowel-consonant words upon hearing the corresponding spoken words. The words were taught in sets; there were six sets, presented consecutively. Within sets, the four words that were taught had overlapping letters, for example, sat, mat, sop, and sug. Tests for recombinative generalization determined whether the children selected novel words with the same components as the trained words (e.g., mop and mug). Two children demonstrated recombinative generalization after one training set, and the 3rd demonstrated it after two training sets. In contrast, 2 other children, who received tests but no training, showed low accuracy across six sets. The 3 experimental children then demonstrated highly accurate printed-word-to-picture matching, and named the majority of the printed words. These findings are a promising step in the development of a computerized instructional technology for reading.