A sorting‐to‐matching method to teach compound matching to sample
Start with picture sorting and fade it into compound matching to teach kids with autism to watch both parts of a stimulus pair.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Five children with autism needed to learn compound matching. The team did not start with regular matching. They started with sorting.
Kids first sorted pictures into trays. Next they matched pairs while the trays stayed in view. Steps slowly faded until kids did pure tabletop matching. The whole chain took five moves.
What they found
Every child hit at least 95 % correct on compound matching after the sorting-to-matching chain. No extra drills were needed.
How this fits with other research
Bennett et al. (1973) saw the opposite. Pigeons did worse when samples were compound. The bird task showed one picture, then another, then choices. Farber’s kids moved real cards and saw both parts together. Species and method explain the clash.
LeFrancois et al. (1993) showed that college students form new equivalence relations after compound-sample training. Farber extends that idea downward to young kids with autism and adds the sorting bridge.
Clarke et al. (1998) also used compound matching with people who have intellectual disability. They taught vowel and consonant classes. Both studies prove compound cues work when you give enough structure.
Why it matters
If a child with autism keeps failing compound matching, do not jump to simpler trials. Run the five-step sorting chain first. Let the child handle the cards, see the pairs, and slowly drop the prompts. You may save hours of error correction later.
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Join Free →Place three compound picture pairs on the table and have the child sort them into trays, then remove the trays step by step across trials.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with developmental disabilities may fail to attend to multiple features in compound stimuli (e.g., arrays of pictures, letters within words) with detrimental effects on learning. Participants were 5 children with autism spectrum disorders who had low to intermediate accuracy scores (35% to 84%) on a computer-presented compound matching task. Sample stimuli were pairs of icons (e.g., chair-tree), the correct comparison was identical to the sample, and each incorrect comparison had one icon in common with the sample (e.g., chair-sun, airplane-tree). A 5-step tabletop sorting-to-matching training procedure was used to teach compound matching. The first step was sorting 3 single pictures; subsequent steps gradually changed the task into compound matching. If progress stalled, tasks were modified temporarily to prompt observing behavior. Following the tabletop training, participants were retested on the compound matching task; accuracy improved to at least 95% for all children. This procedure illustrates one way to improve attending to multiple features of compound stimuli.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2016 · doi:10.1002/jaba.290