An assessment of error-correction procedures for learners with autism

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 46; no. 3; pp. 626 - 639
• Main Authors: McGhan, Anna C., Lerman, Dorothea C.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bloomington, IN Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.09.2013; Wiley Periodicals, Inc; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Subjects: assessment; Autism; Autistic Disorder - complications; Behavior Therapy - methods; Behavior therapy. Cognitive therapy; Biological and medical sciences; Child; Child clinical studies; Child, Preschool; conditional discrimination; Developmental Disabilities; Developmental disorders; Discrimination Learning; Error Correction; Error correction & detection; Evaluation Methods; Feedback; Feedback (Response); Feedback, Psychological; Humans; Infantile autism; Intellectual disabilities; Intellectual Disability; Learning; Learning Disorders - etiology; Learning Disorders - therapy; Male; Mastery Learning; Medical sciences; Methods; Negative Reinforcement; Outcome Assessment (Health Care); Positive Reinforcement; Prior Learning; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; Reinforcement (Psychology); Repetition; Reproducibility of Results; Resistance (Psychology); Sight Vocabulary; Skills; Software reviews; Student Reaction; Students; Studies; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Test Reliability; Test Validity; Therapists; Treatments; Verbal Learning - physiology; Human; Evaluation; conditional discrimination; Instrumental conditioning; Developmental disorder; Learning; Autism; assessment; Acquisition process; Treatment; Discrimination; Behavior therapy; Error correction; autism; error correction
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1002/jaba.65

Prior research indicates that the relative effectiveness of different error‐correction procedures may be idiosyncratic across learners, suggesting the potential benefit of an individualized assessment prior to teaching. In this study, we evaluated the reliability and utility of a rapid error‐correction assessment to identify the least intrusive, most effective procedure for teaching discriminations to 5 learners with autism. The initial assessment included 4 commonly used error‐correction procedures. We compared the total number of trials required for the subject to reach the mastery criterion under each procedure. Subjects then received additional instruction with the least intrusive procedure associated with the fewest number of trials and 2 less effective procedures from the assessment. Outcomes of the additional instruction were consistent with those from the initial assessment for 4 of 5 subjects. These findings suggest that an initial assessment may be beneficial for identifying the most appropriate error‐correction procedure.