In this study the effect of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure was used as part of a clinical investigation to increase vocalizations for two young children diagnosed with autism. This procedure involved pairing a vocal sound with a preferred stimulus (e.g., toy) to condition automatic reinforcement. In addition, this study assessed the effects…

The present study examined whether the presentation of stimuli in equivalence relations with consequences increases the operant behavior that produces these consequences. In Experiment 1, both normal words and experimentally trained equivalence stimuli did so with young children. In Experiment 2, results were similar with college students. Here, a…