Date of Award
5-2025
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
Behavioral Analysis
First Advisor
Catherine Nicholson
Second Advisor
Kimberly N. Sloman
Third Advisor
Catherine F. Talbot
Fourth Advisor
Lisa A. Steelman
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to extend the research on matrix training by evaluating its efficacy for producing recombinative generalization of regular verb tense endings. Three autistic children were shown videos of people known to the participants acting out behaviors associated with an action about to take place, currently taking place, or that took place. The targets (actors, actions, and verb tenses) were arranged in a matrix, and the targets appearing along the diagonal of the matrix were directly trained, while the remaining targets were probed to determine if the participant was able to emit correct responses without any direct training. The therapist gave instructions corresponding to the verb tense targeted in each trial (i.e., "What is about to happen?," "What's happening?," "What happened?"). A response was scored as correct if the participant accurately tacted the specific actor in the video and the specific target action using the verb tense relating to the temporal presentation of the action in the video and the instruction given on that trial (e.g., "Jane typed," "Sam will play," "Ron is cooking,"). All participants learned the actor-action combinations using the correct verb tense and successfully recombined the components of the matrix on probe trials of the untrained targets. Results from this study may provide practitioners with a new way to teach verb tenses to autistic children.
Recommended Citation
Ewald, Alexandra Lynn, "Matrix Training of Verb Tenses with Autistic Children" (2025). Theses and Dissertations. 1589.
https://repository.fit.edu/etd/1589