Precurrent self-prompting operants in children: "Remembering".
Teaching kids their own task-specific mini-prompts locks in accurate matching and blocks delay-related errors.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team taught children to do tiny mediating acts before each matching trial. One group learned acts tied to the sample, like tapping the red square twice. Other groups learned generic acts or none at all.
Then the kids had to pick the matching card after a short delay. The study watched who kept getting it right.
What they found
Kids who learned the sample-specific acts kept matching correctly even when the delay grew. Kids with generic acts or no acts soon made errors.
The special acts protected memory like a built-in cue.
How this fits with other research
Rojahn et al. (2012) extends the same idea to preschool compliance. They taught "stop, look, say yes" as precursors and saw obedience jump without extra rewards.
Busch et al. (2010) and Speights Roberts et al. (2008) also boost compliance with adult-given prompts, but the 1981 paper flips the job to the child. The child supplies the prompt, not the adult.
Fullana et al. (2007) show limits: antecedent tricks failed for two of three preschoolers. The 1981 study hints that teaching self-prompts might have saved those failures.
Why it matters
You can build stronger memory and smoother compliance by teaching clients their own tiny mediating moves. Instead of only fading your prompts, train task-specific self-prompts the child owns. Start with simple motor acts tied to the key stimulus—tap the color, whisper the name—then practice until the move runs itself. The child keeps accuracy when delays or distractions hit, and you spend less time re-teaching lost skills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
IN EXPERIMENT I, ONE OF THREE FORMS OF COLLATERAL BEHAVIOR WAS TRAINED: Differential collateral behavior specific in form to one of two discriminative stimuli; Common collateral behavior of a single form regardless of the stimulus; or Nondifferential collateral behavior of either form regardless of the stimulus. Children were next given a short-delay matching-to-sample task in which the discriminative stimuli served as samples, and the children's previously trained collateral behavior terminated the delay and presented the comparison stimuli. Subjects engaging in sample-specific collateral behavior immediately acquired matching. Subjects engaging in sample-nonspecific collateral behavior failed to acquire matching or did so gradually. In Experiment II the minimal delay in the matching task was varied in a mixed sequence, first with collateral behavior required, and then with collateral behavior prohibited. When emitting collateral behavior Common and Nondifferential subjects showed delay-related decrements in matching while Differential subjects did not. When not emitting collateral behavior all subjects showed delay-related decrements in matching. Common and Nondifferential subjects matched more accurately when prohibited from emitting collateral behavior. Differential subjects matched more accurately when emitting collateral behavior. The results accord with Skinner's (1953, 1968) analysis of precurrent operants.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1981 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1981.36-253