On the use of the term, “discriminative stimulus,” in behavior analytic practice

Axe et al. (2021) read 30 DTT manuals and watched 20 training videos.

They counted how often the word “discriminative stimulus” or “SD” was used.

They also checked if anyone showed data proving the cue actually controlled the child’s response.

Almost every manual called the teacher’s instruction “the SD.”

None showed a test for stimulus control.

The authors say this habit teaches learners the wrong meaning of the term.

Burgio et al. (1991) warned us 30 years ago that the field already used “SD” too loosely. Axe et al. simply prove the drift never stopped.

Corrigan et al. (1998) and Rose et al. (2000) show the right way: they first demonstrate that a colored room or a specific therapist truly changes response rate before calling the cue an SD.

Van Hemel (1973) gives the reason why: a stimulus is only worth observing if its information about reinforcement is near-perfect. When we skip the proof, we erase that value.

If you call every instruction an SD, you stop looking for real stimulus control. That can hide why a learner errors out or fails to generalize. Next time you write a program, run a quick probe: present the cue alone, without reinforcement, and see if the response still happens. Only after it does, write “SD” in your plan.