Does ABLA Test Performance on the ABLA Test Predict Picture Receptive Name Recognition with Persons with Severe Developmental Disabilities.
Failing ABLA Level 6 signals the learner will likely fail receptive picture naming, so shore up simpler auditory-visual skills first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave adults with severe developmental disabilities two tests. First they ran the full ABLA test. Then they tried a picture receptive naming task. They wanted to see if ABLA Level 6 results could predict who would pass the picture test.
No fancy gear—just the standard ABLA kit and common picture cards. Each person’s ABLA score was checked against their picture receptive score.
What they found
Everyone who passed ABLA Level 6 also passed the picture receptive task. Four out of five people who failed Level 6 failed every picture trial. ABLA Level 6 acted like an on-off switch for receptive picture naming.
How this fits with other research
Maddox et al. (2015) extends this idea. They showed that only kids at ABLA-R Level 6 formed new equivalence classes. Put together, the two studies say: Level 6 predicts both picture receptive success and emergent auditory-visual relations.
Kodak et al. (2015) looks similar but isn’t. They swapped ABLA for a quick five-skill screener and still predicted receptive-ID outcomes. Their message: you can forecast success without running the full ABLA, saving time.
Kodak et al. (2022) adds a twist. Their 10-minute scanning check caught kids who would flop at auditory-visual training even when ABLA data were missing. The papers don’t clash—they just spotlight different gatekeeper skills: ABLA Level 6 versus visual scanning.
Why it matters
Before you start receptive picture training, give ABLA Level 6. If the learner fails, teach simpler auditory-visual matches first. If they pass, move ahead with confidence. This one pre-test can spare you weeks of trial-and-error and shield the client from needless frustration.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Research has shown that performance on the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) test correlates with language assessments for persons with developmental disabilities. This study investigated whether performance on ABLA Level 6, an auditory-visual discrimination, predicts performance on a receptive language task with persons with severe developmental disabilities. Five participants who passed ABLA Level 6, and five who failed ABLA Level 6, were each tested on five 2-choice discriminations that required them to point to pictures of common objects after hearing their names. Four of the five participants who had failed ABLA Level 6 failed all of the receptive name recognition tasks. All five participants who had passed ABLA Level 6 passed all of the name recognition tasks. The practical implications of these results are discussed.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 2007 · doi:10.1007/BF03393045