The Use of Matrix Training to Teach Color-Shape Tacts Through Telehealth.
Matrix training over Zoom teaches preschoolers with autism to name color-shape combos and produce new ones without extra lessons.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team ran matrix training over Zoom. Three preschoolers with autism learned color-shape names like "red circle" and "blue square."
They used a multiple-baseline design. Each child started training at a different time to show the teaching caused the gains.
What they found
Two kids mastered the trained combos and said new ones they had never been taught. One child needed short booster sessions to reach the same level.
All sessions happened at home through a computer. Parents helped set up toys and cameras.
How this fits with other research
The result lines up with earlier in-person work. Bailey et al. (2010) taught action-picture tacts the same way and saw untrained combos pop out. Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2019) got noun-verb recombination in toddlers with the same matrix logic.
Marya et al. (2021) pushed the idea further by using speech-generating devices. The new study keeps the matrix recipe but moves it online.
Shingleton-Smith et al. (2024) also used telehealth in 2024, yet they coached parents instead of teaching kids directly. Both papers show remote ABA can work, just for different goals.
Why it matters
You can run matrix training on Zoom and still get emergent tacts. Start with diagonal cells, probe untaught combos, and add quick booster lessons if scores stall. This saves drive time and keeps rural families in treatment.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children on the autism spectrum often have deficits in language development. Given the resources required to provide intensive intervention services, either in person or via telehealth, it may be important to maximize instructional time by using procedures that lead to generative language use, such as matrix training. Matrix training involves systematically arranging and selecting multi-component instructional targets, in which only a select few of the component combinations are directly taught; then, following mastery of the selected targets, a check is completed to test for the emergence of the rest of the combinations within the matrix. In the current study, we use a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants to determine the effects of telehealth-based matrix training on trained and untrained language targets for three young children on the autism spectrum. Two of the three participants required booster training sessions to reach mastery in the post-test condition. These preliminary results suggest that matrix training may be an effective method for teaching multicomponent tacting skills via telehealth to young children with autism.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 2024 · doi:10.1007/s40616-015-0038-y