Observação de pareamento de estímulos e instrução com múltiplos exemplares: efeitos sobre respostas de ouvinte e falante de crianças com TEA

Two procedures have been proposed as alternatives to induce the emergence of repertoires not directly taught: 1) multiple exemplar instruction (MEI); and 2) stimulus pairing observation procedure (SPOP). MEI implies the rotation of teaching different responses to a stimulus (ex., tact and listener response), which favors the incidental learning of these of responses to new stimuli from the teaching only one type. In SPOP is only required the observation of stimuli presented next to each other, without differential reinforcement for any responses. The results of some studies suggest that a higher frequency of pairings could lead to the emergence of tact and listener responses not taught directly, and that the stimuli pairings may affect the MEI. The present study evaluated the effect of SPOP with a higher frequency of pairings by trials on the emergence of tact and listener responses in three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder, and the effect of SPOP in teaching these responses through MEI. For two participants, SPOP with more pairings by trials favored the emergence of the listener repertoire. These participants only learned tact responses after MEI. SPOP had a facilitating effect on MEI training. The role of MEI and intensive tact training for the emergence of tact and listener repertoires is discussed, as well as the types of stimulus control that SPOP seems to favor, and the possibility of investigating SPOP in more natural situations.