Matrix Training for Expanding the Communication of Toddlers and Preschoolers With Autism Spectrum Disorder

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically exhibit a range of social communication deficits. Presequenced stimulus arrangements, such as matrix training, can be used to facilitate generative responding. Accordingly, training procedures can lead to the acquisition of a greater number of targets that are not taught explicitly, with fewer learning trials. Matrix training provides a useful framework for selecting teaching targets to promote the emergence of untaught skills. Participants were 3 young boys diagnosed with ASD, who were taught noun-verb combinations of play actions as tact and listener responses. All participants learned the taught noun-verb targets and showed varying degrees of recombinative generalization to untaught targets. Across subsequent matrices, the rate of acquisition of new targets and the number acquired without direct teaching increased (i.e., recombinative generalization). This suggests matrix training stimulus arrangements can facilitate the acquisition of novel targets by teaching young children with ASD to recombine language components appropriately.