Using Object Imitation to Establish Auditory-Visual Conditional Discrimination in Children Diagnosed With Autism

Responding effectively to verbal stimuli requires auditory-visual conditional discriminations (AVCDs), which some learners with severe language delays struggle to acquire. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of transferring control over object selection from a modeled action to a spoken word. The participants were two six-year-old twins who already had generalized object imitation skills but had not successfully acquired any listener discriminations. During the object imitation to AVCD transfer procedure, the instructor initially modeled a play-based functional action with each object and reinforced object imitation. Correct object imitation was then followed by an AVCD trial. Effects on acquisition were evaluated in a two-tier multiple baseline design across participants with replication across stimulus sets. Both the participants not only acquired the AVCD targets across 4 sets, but showed generalization and maintenance across other AVCD targets during and following the study.