Considerations in the effective teaching of object-to-symbol matching

AbstractThis case study presents findings from an initial phase of a communication program for a man with severe mental retardation. A matching-to-sample procedure was used to teach relations between objects and abstract symbols (lexigrams). It was found that the configuration of the teaching trials greatly influenced the speed of initial acquisition of the relations. Specifically, acquisition did not occur with the lexigram in the sample position, but acquisition occurred rapidly with the object in the sample position. Once the problem was learned with this configuration, reversing the positions of lexigrams and objects did not disturb the acquired relationship. The next problem was learned rapidly with objects as samples and lexigrams as choice stimuli. High accuracy was maintained when stimuli from these two problems were combined within the same session, regardless of whether objects or lexigrams served as samples. These findings verify the usefulness of the matching-to-sample procedure as a means of teaching object-symbol relations to this subject.Keywordsaugmentative communication case study lexigrams matching to sample mental retardation