Teaching visual conditional discriminations using errorless learning: The role of prompts requiring simple and conditional discriminative control

ABSTRACT Errorless learning procedures were first developed in Basic Research Laboratories with nonhuman subjects to teach simple (i.e., nonconditional) discriminations (SD). Today, errorless procedures are widely used for teaching both simple and conditional discriminations (CD), often to developmentally limited learners. The present article puts forward the idea that the stimulus control engendered by prompts in errorless learning procedures may also be classified as requiring simple versus conditional discriminative control. The present paper presents data comparing two errorless prompting procedures to teach visual CDs to six typically developing children and three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). A matching-to-sample procedure with unfamiliar forms as visual stimuli was used. A comparison of two different prompts was conducted: prompts requiring SD control and prompts requiring conditional discriminative control. Results indicated that eight of nine participants acquired CDs in fewer trials when the prompts required conditional control; one child with ASD required fewer trials when prompts required simple discriminative control. Results suggest an advantage for teaching CDs using prompts requiring conditional discriminative control.