Training Class Inclusion Responding in Young Children Teresa Mulhern Dr. Ian Stewart Recipient of NUI, Galway Doctoral Research Scholarship

Class Inclusion Both the larger and smaller of two subclasses belong to a superordinate group (Thomas & Horton, 1997)

Development of Class Inclusion 5 – 8 year-olds unable to perform CI tasks (Brainerd, 1973; Winer, 1980) 75% accuracy at 10 (Kofsky, 1966; Lovell, Mitchell & Everett, 1962; Meadows, 1977) Or, 13-year-olds (Billow, 1975; Hooper, Sipple, Goldman & Swinton, 1979)

Previous Research Addressed Class inclusion responding with 4 – 11 year-olds (Goswami & Pauen, 2005; Greene, 1991; Pasnak, Cooke & Hendricks, 2006; Siegler & Svetina, 2006) Poor generalization (Pellegrini, 1983) Poor maintenance (McCabe & Siegel, 1987)

Current Research 3 – 4 year-olds (M = 3. 7 years; 2 males, 1 female) Multiple Baseline Across Participants Non-arbitrary containment relational training IOA & Procedural Fidelity for all sessions

Screening Assessment For inclusion, participants were screened for: Tacting: All included stimuli Category names Quantity of items (1 – 10) Non-arbitrary “more” or “less” relations

Baseline Tested on 4 categories: Fruit Animals Vehicles Clothing Class inclusion questions were balanced into 8 trial types: “Are there more [category] or more [bigger subclass]?” “Are there more [bigger subclass] or more [category]?” “Are there more [category] or more [smaller subclass]?” “Are there more [smaller subclass] or more [category]?” “Are there less [category] or less [bigger subclass]?” “Are there less [bigger subclass] or less [category]?” “Are there less [category] or less [smaller subclass]?” “Are there less [smaller subclass] or less [category]?”

Experimental Stimuli Stimulus Set: animals (4.5cm X 4.5cm laminated cards) 1 large box Referred to as the “animal category box” 2 smaller boxes to be placed within the larger box

Training Phase 1 Outline the relationship between the boxes and stimuli “This big box is for the category. What category do these belong to? These two smaller boxes are for the different animals. The small boxes will go inside the animal category box.” Student then sorts the stimuli into their respective boxes Ask the participant to identify the boxes. Present the Class Inclusion Question.

Training Phase 1 - Consequences For Correct responses: “There are more animals than dogs/ there are less dogs than animals” Praise & Token For incorrect “more” responses: Repeat the requirement to identify the boxes “That’s right, dogs and cats are types of animals, so they all go inside the big animal category box. They all belong to the animal category, but only these are dogs, so there are more animals in the animal category box than there are dogs in the dog box” Repeat class inclusion question Reinforcement Repeat trial type with new animal stimuli

Training Phase 1 - Consequences For incorrect “less” responses: Repeat the requirement to identify the boxes “That’s right, dogs and cats are types of animals, so they all go inside the big animal category box. They all belong to the animal category, but only these are dogs, so there are less dogs in the dog box than there are animals in the animal category box.” Repeat class inclusion question Reinforcement Repeat trial type with new animal stimuli

Training Phase 2 Student sorts the stimuli into their relevant boxes. Present the class inclusion question. Correct Responses: “That’s right! There are more horses than animals/There are less horses than animals” Praise & Token

Training Phase 2- Consequences For incorrect “more” responses: Ask student to identify the respective boxes. “They all belong to the animal category. But only these are horses, so there are more animals than there are horses.” Repeat class inclusion question Reinforcement Repeat trial type with new animal stimuli For incorrect “less” responses: Ask student to identify the respective boxes “They all belong to the animal category. But only these are horses, so there are less horses than there are animals.”

Generalization Phase - Animals As in baseline, the stimulus set of animals are presented. No feedback No boxes Generalization Phase – Novel Categories Stimulus sets: Clothing Vehicles Fruit No feedback No boxes

Results

Maintenance Maintenance assessed for one participant 1 month following training cessation

Results Considerable increase in correct class inclusion responding over baseline levels (PND = 100%) Significant generalization of class inclusion responding to novel stimulus sets Maintenance demonstrated for participant assessed