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

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

3. 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)

4. 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)

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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]?”

8. 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

9. 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.

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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

13. 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.”

14. 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

15. Results

16. Maintenance
Maintenance assessed for one participant 1 month following training cessation

17. 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