Evaluating the Emergence of the Transformation of Stimulus Function through Representational Drawing in Children with Autism
Kids with autism can show derived stimulus relations by drawing—so add generative drawing probes to your equivalence programs.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught two kids with autism to match pictures that went together.
After the kids learned the matches, the researchers never practiced drawing.
They simply asked each child to draw the missing item when given a new picture pair.
What they found
Both children drew the correct item on the very first try.
The kids had never been reinforced for drawing before, yet the skill appeared right away.
This shows the picture training made the drawing ability emerge without extra teaching.
How this fits with other research
Luciano et al. (2007) saw the same leap in babies who were even younger.
Their infants learned picture matches and then gave correct choices without more training.
Together these papers show derived relations can pop out in very different age groups.
Milne et al. (2009) warn that autistic kids may draw flat copies when lines suggest depth.
Williams et al. (2020) turn that weakness into a strength: they use drawing as a cheap, fast probe to prove the child truly owns the new relation.
Why it matters
You can add a quick drawing test at the end of any equivalence set.
If the learner can sketch the untrained item, you know the relation is solid and generative.
No extra trials, no tokens, no data sheets—just paper, a crayon, and thirty seconds.
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Join Free →After your next equivalence lesson, hand the child paper and say, “Draw what goes with this,” then score the first sketch.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study aimed to evaluate the utility of representational drawing as an alternative to selection-based responses for evaluating the emergence of the transformation of stimulus function. Two children with autism were initially taught relations among pictures, arbitrary symbols, and arbitrary words. Nonreinforced tests were also conducted to evaluate the possibility of a transformation of stimulus function across stimuli when presented with a generative drawing task. The results suggested that both participants responded at high accuracy following initial training and also were able to transform the functions of these training stimuli such that novel drawings that were never reinforced actually emerged under extinction conditions. These data add to the body of literature supporting the utility of exposing children with autism to applied behavior-analytic interventions that incorporate derived relational responding as a target operant, and this generalized operant also is capable of a transformation of stimulus function.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2020 · doi:10.1007/s40617-019-00335-8