Teaching Numbers Relations to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

The purposes of this research are to evaluate the effectiveness of MTS computerized teaching tasks, and develop, apply and evaluate a Stimulus Equivalence Paradigm based curriculum to teach number concept. Studies that used MTS procedure to teach arbitrary conditional discriminations and equivalence relations obtained positive results on subjects with disability. We propose a systematic replication of Rossit (2003), that used MTS tasks to teach monetary system to youths with intellectual disability on a Stimulus Equivalence Paradigm based organized curriculum. In order to teach number concept, the experimental stimuli (numerals from one until nine, and figures of non-representational forms) were divided in three stimuli groups of increasing values in a multiple baseline design among stimuli groups. Participants in the research were three ASD students, eight to 12 years old. The results show efficacy on teaching number concept for ASD children with strategy derived from Stimulus Equivalence, replicating the results obtained by Rossit (2003) and corroborating previous notes on the contribution of resource derived from the Applied Behavior Analysis for the success in including students with ASD. To teach the concept of number, a gradual training was conducted using as stimuli groups of three numerals, in tasks of computerized MTS for the formation of the ‘numeral’ and ‘quantity’ classes, related to each other. Three students with ASD from eight to 12 years old participated in the study. The results showed that the procedure was effective for all participants, and one of the three participants acquired the whole wanted repertoire in 24 teaching sessions