Ensino de linguagem receptiva para crianças com autismo : comparando dois procedimentos.

This study compared the efficiency of a Simple-Conditional Discrimination (SCD) procedure that from the start used trial blocks and three stimuli, with another procedure of Conditional Discrimination (CD) in teaching receptive language to three autistic children. Each child was trained in nine spoken-word/figure relations contained in each type of procedure. The SCD procedure consisted of six blocks of three trials in Phase 1, nine blocks of two trials in Phase 2, and randomized trials in Phase 3. The CD procedure was identical to Phase 3 of SCD, but with other stimuli. The CD procedure was more efficient for establishing receptive language, but the SCD was more effective for maintaining the repertoire. The implications of these results for the applied area and directions for future research are discussed.