Receptive acquisition and generalization of prepositional responding in autistic children: A comparison of two procedures

This investigation compared the effectiveness of two strategies with respect to the receptive acquisition and generalization of prepositional concepts in four autistic children. During “position self” training, the student was instructed to place himself in a specific relation to an object; “position object” training involved the student placing an object in a specific prepositional relation to another object. Data on the acquisition of the prepositional concepts showed that both strategies were effective, with prepositions trained in the “position object” condition acquired in slightly fewer sessions. For three of the students, specific programming was required before responding generalized to novel stimuli and/or across response topographies. Implications of these findings with respect to the training of generalized receptive comprehension of prepositions are discussed.