Papers by Kathryn saunders
American Journal on Mental Retardation, 1997
The classic literature suggests that individuals with MAs of less than 5 years may fail tasks tha... more The classic literature suggests that individuals with MAs of less than 5 years may fail tasks that require same/different judgments. In Study 1 we used an assessment procedure that provided minimal instructional programming to determine whether 17 adults with MAs ranging from 2 years, 5 months to 4 years, 11 months would show accurate identity matching-to-sample. Stimuli were letter-like nonsense forms. Eight participants showed highly accurate matching. Eight of the 9 who failed were available for further study. Of these, 5 ultimately demonstrated highly accurate matching after training with standard fading procedures. These data suggest that a greater proportion of individuals with low MAs can exhibit generalized identity matching than previously documented in the literature.
Journal of The Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2000
Two experiments demonstrated stimulus control and generalization of conditioned punishment with h... more Two experiments demonstrated stimulus control and generalization of conditioned punishment with humans. In both studies, responses first were reinforced with points exchangeable for money on a variable-interval schedule in the presence of one line length (S D ). Next, a second line length was introduced, and point loss followed every response in the presence of that line (S ). In the final D p training condition, points were deducted at session end. Response rate was lower in the presence of the S despite equal rates of points for money in the presence of both stimuli. In generalization D p testing for Experiment 1, the two lines were included in a 10-line continuum; S fell in the middle D p and the trained S D was at one end. Lines were presented randomly, and point delivery and loss contingencies were as in training but with points available in the presence of all lines. For all subjects, response rates were lowest around S and increased towards the S D end of the continuum. Because D p testing included only one or two lines beyond S D , this pattern did not rule out S D generalization. Thus, in Experiment 2, stimuli beyond S D were added to generalization tests. Response rates did not decrease as a function of distance from S D , clarifying the demonstration of punishment generalization.
The chapter describes procedures to demonstrate derived stimulus control and to classify them bas... more The chapter describes procedures to demonstrate derived stimulus control and to classify them based on structure. It discusses the relationship among the various training structures and the likelihood of demonstrating stimulus classes in humans and animals. It also notes procedural differences that might affect the likelihood of demonstrating derived stimulus control within a particular training structure. There is more than one type of transfer involved in the stimulus class literature, and some species are limited to unidirectional transfer that essentially involves the recombination of chains: Pigeons demonstrate unidirectional transfer that may not involve symmetry or transitivity. They also demonstrate transfer that can be mediated by behaviors that occur between the presentation of the sample stimulus and the response to the comparison stimulus. Moreover, such intervening behaviors play different roles for pigeons than for human subjects. Pigeons are yet to demonstrate nonmediated symmetry or equivalence.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2003
Two adults with mental retardation demonstrated the recombination of within-syllable units (onset... more Two adults with mental retardation demonstrated the recombination of within-syllable units (onsets and rimes) using a spoken-to-printed-word matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure. Further testing with 1 participant showed comprehension of the printed words. Printed-word naming was minimal before, but greater after, comprehension tests. The findings suggest that these procedures hold promise for further basic and applied analyses of word-attack skills.
International Review of Research in Mental Retardation, 1997
This chapter discusses the methodological issues in the study of drug effects on cognitive skills... more This chapter discusses the methodological issues in the study of drug effects on cognitive skills in mental retardation (MR). Despite the widespread use of psychoactive drugs in the treatment of individuals with MR, little is known about their effects on cognitive functioning and adaptive behavior. This chapter discusses the growth of knowledge base, by focusing on the methodological issues, and also discusses some of the broader issues relating to the measurement of the cognitive effects of drugs in this population and critically examines the methods and procedures. Specific measurement procedures are discussed in detail. Informative research has been limited by difficulties developing the measures of learning and performance that are sensitive to drug effects, comparable across a range of functional levels. Procedures traditionally used to study drug, psychiatric, and physiological variables on information processing and cognitive performance typically depend on intact, sophisticated verbal abilities. Often, these procedures cannot be adapted for individuals with poor instruction-following abilities. As a result, this chapter describes the promising procedures from the basic literature on behavioral pharmacology and stimulus control that are not dependent on verbal repertoires.
Journal of The Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2007
The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antece... more The purpose of this experiment was to establish discriminative control of responding by an antecedent stimulus using differential punishment because the results of past studies on this topic have been mixed. Three adults with mental retardation who exhibited stereotypy not maintained by social consequences (i.e., automatic reinforcement) participated. For each subject, stereotypy occurred frequently in the presence of a stimulus correlated with nonpunishment of stereotypy and rarely, if ever, in the presence of a stimulus correlated with punishment of stereotypy. Latency measures showed that the antecedent stimulus correlated with punishment served as the discriminative stimulus for the suppression of stereotypy. These results are important insofar as they show that discriminative control by an antecedent stimulus develops with punishment, and because it sometimes may be desirable to establish such control of socially inappropriate behavior.
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Papers by Kathryn saunders