Effects of multiple exemplar instruction on naming

Abstract

A study was conducted with three participants from The Jigsaw CABAS® School to test the effects of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) on the development of naming. The participants all had a diagnosis of autism and were aged 12–16 years. The MEI procedure was implemented by randomly rotating learn units across listener and speaker responding, using a set of contrived stimuli (e.g. symbols assigned names based on foreign language words or nonsense words). Adaptations of MEI were made for each of the participants. One adaptation included adding an echoic component to listener responding for two participants and the second adaptation involved changing the MEI procedure and probes to include sign language. The study measured the number of correct responses in probe trials of listener and speaker responses to the contrived stimuli, following mastery of matching. If naming was not present in these probe trials, echoic responding was added to composition of learn units in the next phase. Probes were conducted for naming prior to, and post, the MEI procedure. The results showed that in the second post-MEI probe set naming was present for all three participants.