Establishing Foundational Nonarbitrary Distinctive and Categorical Relational Responding in Children with Autism
A quick simple-to-conditional discrimination chain teaches autistic kids to relate items as 'same,' 'different,' or 'belonging to a group,' and the skill transfers to untaught pictures.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Belisle et al. (2023) worked with three autistic children. The team ran a simple-to-conditional discrimination sequence. Kids first learned to pick the 'different' picture. Next they learned 'same/different' choices. Last they learned to sort items into categories.
Each child had a multiple-baseline design. Training took only a few short sessions. No extra prompts or rewards were added once the sequence started.
What they found
All three children met mastery on every target. They could point to the different item, match same/different pairs, and place pictures into groups. The skills appeared quickly and stayed solid.
Most important, the kids generalized. When brand-new pictures showed up, they still sorted them correctly. No extra teaching was needed for the new items.
How this fits with other research
Sivaraman et al. (2018) used exclusion training to teach auditory-visual links. Belisle adds same/different and categorization frames, widening the early-relational toolbox.
Cicchetti et al. (2014) started with listener training and saw categorization emerge. Belisle flips the order: simple discrimination first, then conditional. Both paths work, giving you choice when you plan lessons.
Polo-López et al. (2014) compared simple versus complex samples and found mixed generalization. Belisle's simple-to-conditional sequence produced clear generalization for every child, suggesting the staged approach may fix the old inconsistency.
Lee et al. (2025) later showed matrix training can build spatial prepositions without direct teaching. Their recombinative leap rests on the very frames—same, different, category—that Belisle's short sequence installs.
Why it matters
You can run this whole package in under an hour of table time. Start with 'pick the one that's different,' move to 'same/different' matching, finish with category bins. Once the frames are solid, kids sort new items right away. That sets the stage for advanced language and academic programs without extra prep or fancy materials.
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Join Free →Run a five-trial 'find the different one' set; if the child hits 80%, jump straight into same/different matching and finish with a mini category sort—all in one sitting.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study sought to evaluate a sequence of training procedures on the emergence of foundational relational responses that underly more complex distinctive (i.e., difference) and hierarchical (i.e., categorical) relational frames. In a multiple baseline design, an initial baseline period with three children with autism showed that the participants did not select nonidentical stimuli from an array when presented the contextual cue “different.” Simple discrimination training was efficacious in establishing this response and the skill transferred to a novel set of stimuli without reinforcement. In a second baseline period, participants did not demonstrate conditional identical/nonidentical relational responses when provided the contextual cues “same” and “different.” Conditional discrimination training with all three participants was again efficacious in establishing the conditional reflexive and distinctive responses and the skill transferred to untrained stimuli. In a third baseline period, participants did not demonstrate correct conditional categorization/sorting. Like in the prior two training conditions, training was efficacious in establishing the target response with a generalized transfer to untrained stimuli.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s40617-023-00806-z