Training Class Inclusion Responding in Young Children and Individuals with Autism Teresa Mulhern1, Siri Ming1, Laura Moran2, & Dr. Ian Stewart1 1 National University of Ireland, Galway 2 Brothers of Charity, Roscommon This research was funded by the National University of Ireland, Galway Research Doctoral Scholarship

Class Inclusion Both the larger and smaller of the two subclasses belong to a superordinate group (Thomas & Horton, 1997) Class inclusion involves the ability to understand that when presented with two or more stimulus sets from the same category, the larger of these subclasses belongs to the larger superordinate group. As such, when presented with five dogs and three cats and asked, “Are there more dogs or more animals?” a correct class inclusion response involves understanding that there are “more animals”, and as such conceptualizing the larger and smaller stimulus sets as both animals and their respective subclasses. As such, Piaget (1975) and Winer (1980) propose that class inclusion responses involve the successful performance of both class addition and subtraction. Class inclusion constitutes one of the most commonly utilized measures of concrete operations. The importance of class inclusion cannot be understated, as class inclusion, in addition to many of Piaget’s other concrete operational skills, have been included in the primary school math curriculum.

Development of Class Inclusion 5 – 8-year-olds are unable to perform CI tasks (Winer, 1980) 75% accuracy achieved at the age of 10 (Meadows, 1977) In some instances, at the age of 13 (Hooper et al., 1979) Winer’s (1980) review suggests that class inclusion development typically occurs at a much later age than that which was originally suggested by Piaget, which was approximately seven or eight years of age. Winer states that the 75% criterion is generally not reached until children reach the age of ten or, in some cases thirteen-years-old. Winer (1980) maintains that there are grounds to speculate that the addition of specific verbal cues, presented with relational terminology, influence the class inclusion performance of children.

Previous Research 4 – 11-year-olds (Goswami & Pauen, 2995; Pasnak et al., 2008; Siegler & Svetina, 2006) Poor generalization (Pellegrini, 1983) Poor maintenance (McCabe & Siegel, 1987) No research with autism While there is a dearth of literature in this area, thus far, there have been no class inclusion training procedures applied to participants under the age of four. Furthermore, there remains a lack of evidence regarding the generalization and maintenance of training effects, with 43.8% of the sixteen studies addressing class inclusion responding assessing either generalization or maintenance effects (n = 7). Of these studies, one reported positive generalization outcomes (Brainerd, 1974), a further two studies reported mixed generalization outcomes (Pellegrini, 1983;Wohlwill 1968). Of the studies that assessed maintenance outcomes, one reported positive maintenance outcomes (Wilson-Quayle & Pasnak, 1997), while a further study reported mixed maintenance outcomes (McCabe & Siegel, 1987). As such, further information is necessary in order to determine the efficacy of training procedures to facilitate class inclusion reasoning and ensure maintenance and generalization of treatment effects.

Experiment 1 3 – 4-year-olds (M = 3.7 years; 2 males, 1 female) Multiple Baseline Across Participants Non-arbitrary containment relational training IOA and Procedural fidelity for all sessions.

Screening Assessment Tacting: All Included stimuli Category names Quantity of items (1 – 10) Non-arbitrary “more” or “less” relations.

Baseline Tested on 4 categories: (1) Fruit, (2) Animals, (3) Vehicles, and (4) Clothing Questions were balanced into 8 trial types: 1. “Are there more [category] or more [bigger subclass]?” 2. “Are there more [bigger subclass] or more [category]?” 3. “Are there more [category] or more [smaller subclass]?” 4. “Are there more [smaller subclass] or more [category]?” 5. “Are there less [category] or less [bigger subclass]?” 6. “Are there less [bigger subclass] or less [category]?” 7. “Are there less [category] or less [smaller subclass]?” 8. “Are there less [smaller subclass] or less [category]?”

Experimental Stimuli Stimulus set: animals (4.5cm X 4.5cm laminated cards) 1 large box Referred to as the “animal category box” 2 smaller boxes to be placed within the larger box

Training Phase 1 Outline the relationship between the boxes and stimuli. “This big box is for the category. What category do these belong to? These two smaller boxes are for the different animals. The small boxes will go inside the animal category box.” Student then sorts the stimuli into their respective boxes. Ask the participant to identify the boxes. Present Class Inclusion Question.

Training Phase 1 Consequences Correct responses: Specific feedback relating to the task, praise and token Incorrect responses: Repeat the requirement to identify the boxes, paired with specific feedback Repeat class inclusion question Reinforcement Repeat trial type with new animal stimuli “There are more animals than dogs/ there are less dogs than animals” “That’s right, dogs and cats are types of animals, so they all go inside the big animal category box. They all belong to the animal category, but only these are dogs, so there are more animals in the animal category box than there are dogs in the dog box”

Training Phase 2 Student sorts the stimuli into their relevant boxes Present the class inclusion question. Reinforce correct responses with specific praise relevant to the task and praise.

Training Phase 2 - Consequences For incorrect responses: Ask the student to identify the respective boxes and provide specific feedback. Repeat class inclusion question. Positive reinforcement. Repeat trial type with new animal stimuli. “They all belong to the animal category. But only these are horses, so there are more animals than there are horses.” “They all belong to the animal category. But only these are horses, so there are less horses than there are animals.”

Generalization and Maintenance Phase Generalization: Animals only – As in baseline, the stimulus set of animals are presented No feedback or boxes. Generalization: Additional Categories – Stimulus sets of clothing, fruit and vehicles. Maintenance – As in baseline, the stimulus set of animals, clothing, fruit and vehicles are presented. 1 month post-training.

Results

Experiment 1: Results Considerable increase in correct class inclusion responding over baseline levels. Significant generalization of class inclusion responding to novel stimulus sets. Maintenance demonstrated for all three participants.

Experiment 2 2 Individuals with autism, aged 10 and 16. PPVT ages of 6 years 5 months, and 7 years 11 months. Multiple Baseline Across Two Participants Non-arbitrary containment relational training

Procedure Screening assessment as in experiment 1. Baseline, intervention, generalization and maintenance phases as in experiment 1.

Results Michael was two months and Tony was 6 weeks post intervention for their maintenance. For Michael, he returned to phase 2 for a training session after he failed the maintenance test. The subsequent tests have been a day apart. The next test will be three days, then a week then a month.

Results Michael was two months and Tony was 6 weeks post intervention for their maintenance. For Michael, he returned to phase 2 for a training session after he failed the maintenance test. The subsequent tests have been a day apart. The next test will be three days, then a week then a month.

Experiment 2: Results Considerable increase in correct class inclusion responding over baseline levels. Significant generalization of class inclusion responding to novel stimulus sets. Maintenance demonstrated for both participants, however, participant 1 required one further training session to acquire maintenance