Teaching children with autism using conditioned cue-value and response-marking procedures: a socially valid procedure.
A simple "good!" or "look!" during the 5-second delay before reinforcement speeds up learning for kids with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team worked with children with autism. They compared two ways to fill a 5-second wait before giving a reinforcer.
One way was conditioned cue-value: the teacher said "good!" right after a correct response. The other way was response-marking: the teacher said "look!" after any response. A third condition had no cue during the wait.
All kids tried each method in an alternating-treatments design while learning word-to-picture matching.
What they found
Both "good!" and "look!" beat the silent wait. Kids learned the picture matches faster when either cue was used.
There was little difference between saying "good!" and saying "look!" Both cues worked equally well.
How this fits with other research
Grindle et al. (2002) ran a nearly identical study two years earlier. They also found cues beat silence, but they used receptive labeling instead of picture matching. The 2004 paper refines the same idea with a new task.
O’Neill et al. (2022) and O’Neill et al. (2018) look like they clash. They say progressive prompt delays beat constant 5-second delays. The key difference: they varied prompt timing, not cue type. F et al. held delay at 5 seconds and only changed what was said during the wait.
Koegel et al. (2014) and Wong et al. (2020) show other ways to speed up receptive labeling, such as conditional-only arrays or free stimulus rotation. F et al. adds ‘fill the wait with a cue’ to that toolbox.
Why it matters
You can cut acquisition time without changing your reinforcer schedule. Just add a quick verbal cue during the 5-second delay. Say "good!" after a correct response or even a neutral "look!" after any response. Both work, so pick the one that feels natural. Try it in your next discrete-trial session and track how fast the child masters new items.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Five children with autism were taught to match printed words to corresponding pictures. Participants' speed of learning was compared across three training conditions, each involving a 5-s delay of reinforcement, using a within-participants alternating treatments design. In the cue-value condition, a verbal phrase of approval (e.g., "good!") was delivered only after correct responses and again after a 5-s delay when a primary reinforcer was delivered; in the response-marking condition, an attention-eliciting verbal cue (e.g., "look!") was delivered after both correct and incorrect responses, but not prior to the primary reinforcer; in the delay only condition, there were no cues during a 5-s delay. Performance in the no-cue control was inferior to both the cue-value and response-marking conditions, but there was little difference between the latter two conditions. The implications of these results for facilitating learning in applied settings are discussed.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2004 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2003.09.003