Teresa Mulhern Ian Stewart Investigating Containment and Hierarchical Relational Responding In Young Children Teresa Mulhern Ian Stewart This research was funded by the NUI Galway Research Doctoral Scholarship

Classification Stimuli are said to be in a class when a common set of responses are emitted in their presence (Barnes-Holmes, Hayes, Dymond & O'Hora, 2001) Perceptual classes (physical properties) Associative classes (abstract; e.g., Galizio, Stewart, & Pilgrim, 2001) Natural language classes (both abstract and physical; e.g., Adams, Fields, & Verhave, 1993)

Hierarchical Classification Classes within classes Missing functional properties cited in cognitive literature Griffee & Dougher (2002) Slattery, Stewart & O’Hora (2011) Modelled within Relational Frame Theory (RFT) as patterns of relational framing (‘containment’ and ‘hierarchical’ framing) Transitivity and asymmetrical relations Gil, Luciano, Ruiz and Valdivia-Salas (2012) Slattery and Stewart (2014)

Learning Hierarchical Classification Containment (Non-arbitrary) E.g., ‘The water is in the glass’ (given container and contained material) Containment (Arbitrary) E.g., ‘The coin is in the box. What does the box contain?’ (no stimuli present) Hierarchy (Arbitrary) E.g., ‘A lion is a type of animal. Does the class ‘animal’ contain lions?’

Current Research Measure patterns of relational framing linked with categorization in 50 young typically developing children (aged 3 - 7 years) Correlate framing performance with linguistic and cognitive performance Stanford Binet, 5th edition (SB-5) The Children's Category Test (CCT) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition (PPVT-4) Class Inclusion

Assessments Stanford Binet, 5th edition (SB-5) The Children's Category Test (CCT) Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, 4th Edition (PPVT-4) Class Inclusion Non-Arbitrary Containment Differently coloured, and differently sized boxes (e.g., a small box could be inserted into a medium sized box, while a medium sized box could be inserted into a large box) Arbitrary Containment Differently coloured same-size circles Arbitrary Hierarchy Nonsense syllables presented as text on a laptop screen outlining hierarchical relationship between stimuli

Assessing Non-Arbitrary Containment “The blue box is inside the orange box” - “Does the orange box contain a blue box?” ToF 2 stimuli: “The orange box contains a blue box. Susan likes the colour orange.” – “Is the blue box inside a box that Susan likes?” CE: “The yellow box is inside the blue box, the blue box is inside the red box.” – “Does the red box contain a yellow box?” ToF 3 stimuli: “The red box contains a blue box, the blue box contains a yellow box. Ben likes the colour yellow.” – “Does the red box contain a box that Ben likes?”

Assessing Arbitrary Containment “The green circle contains the red circle” – “Is the red circle inside the green circle?” ToF 2 “The red circle is inside the green circle. Brian likes the colour red.” – “Is there a circle that Brian likes inside the green circle?” CE: “The blue circle is inside the orange circle, the orange circle is inside the yellow circle.” – “Does the blue circle contain the yellow circle?” ToF 3: The blue circle contains the orange circle, the orange circle contains the yellow circle. Sarah likes the colour yellow.” – “Does the blue circle contain a circle that Sarah likes?”

Assessing Arbitrary Hierarchy ME: “A Tol is a type of Gip” – “Are all Tols Gips?” ToF 2: “A tol is a type of Gip. Tols have green eyes.” – “Does the class Gip contain members with green eyes?” CE: “A Bik is a type of Gip, a Gip is a type of Timp.” – “Does the class Timp contain Biks?” ToF 3: “A Timp is a type of Gip, a Gip is a type of Bik. Timps like sweet food.” – “Does the class Timps contain members that like sweet food?”

Test-Retest Reliability All pts were re-exposed to non-arb. containment, arb. containment, and arb. hierarchical relational responding testing with novel stimuli between 10-14 days after initial testing. All measures showed high reliability.

Hierarchical Framing & Development These data provide a developmental trajectory of repertoires of containment and hierarchical relational responding

Correlations

Correlations Strong correlations between age in months and relational framing performance Strong correlations between relational framing repertoire and cognitive and linguistic performance Moderate correlations between relational framing performance and categorization and class inclusion responding

Conclusion Promising initial result for the assessment of containment and hierarchical derived relational responding, indicating that this repertoire is strongly related to linguistic and intellectual performance The current research also provided information regarding the development of relational frames theorized to influence categorization repertoires in young children

Study 2 Aim: To investigate whether arbitrary containment repertoires can be trained using multiple exemplar training (MET) Participants: One 5 yr. 4mth old TD female Design: Multiple baseline across components

Pre-Assessment Non-Arbitrary Containment Repertoire Assessed Participants with <60% correct responding were selected as participants. ME Score ToF 2 Score CE Score ToF 3 Score Total Score 100% 81.25% 95.31% ME Score ToF 2 Score CE Score ToF 3 Score Total Score 43.75% 56.25% 50% 48.44%

Method Arb. Containment Materials

Method The relationship between nonsense syllables were presented as text on a laptop screen with up to 4 stimulus sets. E.g., A blorg is inside a grap Underneath this description, is a question which assesses either mutual entailment, combinatorial entailment and transformation of stimulus function E.g., Is a blorg inside a grap? A total of 64 questions

Baseline Baseline Assessment Pt. assessed for arb. containment relational responding across mutually entailed relations (16 questions), combinatorial entailed relations (16 questions), and transformation of stimulus functions (64 questions) Tested across 4 stimulus sets No feedback or R+ provided

Training Sequence Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 Phase 4 Mutually entailed relations (2 stimuli) Phase 2 Transformation of stimulus functions (2 stimuli) Phase 3 Combinatorial entailed relations (3 stimuli) Phase 4 Transformation of stimulus functions (3 stimuli)

Consequences Positive R+ (tokens and praise) for correct responses in addition to specific feedback FR4 exchange of tokens for stickers Pt. given corrective feedback for incorrect responses and re-exposed to the trial If the pt. beat her score from the previous session she could choose something from the stationery box

Progression The pt. was exposed to training using one stimulus set Once mastery criterion was met, the pt. was then assessed for generalization If generalization shown, she progressed onto the next phase; otherwise she was re-exposed to training using a novel set

Results Training sessions conducted over a three-week period The pt. generalized arb. containment to novel stimuli across all phases Maintenance was shown 1 wk, 2 wks, 3 wks and 4 wks post-training

Conclusion The current study constitutes the first of its kind to successfully train arbitrary containment repertoires in a young child Generalization and maintenance observed Future research should aim to train arbitrary containment repertoires in younger populations, or individuals with developmental disabilities