Comparing matrix sizes when teaching direction following to preschoolers with autism spectrum disorder

A Tutorial for Implementing Matrix Training in Practice

Matrix training consists of arranging targets for instruction to promote fine-grained stimulus control resulting in the establishment of skills without direct training. Recent reviews of the matrix training literature (Curiel et al., 2020a, b.; Kemmerer et al., 2021) highlighted the efficacy and efficiency of the approach with learners with and without disabilities. These reviews noted substantial variations in procedures across studies, suggesting the approach may be flexibly deployed across content areas and teaching procedures. This outcome is positive for practitioners as they may customize matrix training to meet the unique needs of their clients. However, it also necessitates decision making to sort through the variations in the literature. This tutorial was developed to help practitioners weigh various considerations when using matrix training. Tools and resources are provided to illustrate and accelerate adoption into practice settings.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-022-00733-5.

Comparing Matrix-Training Procedures with Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Recombinative generalization is the production of responses in the presence of novel combinations of known components. For example, after learning "red triangle" and "blue square," recombinative generalization is observed when a child can tact "red square" and "blue triangle." Recombinative generalization can emerge from a history of matrix training, which involves carefully selecting and arranging stimuli and responses along at least two axes and training a subset of responses. With three children with autism spectrum disorder, we compared recombinative generalization of object-action or feature-object tacts when the component stimuli were trained before combination stimuli, trained along with combination stimuli, or untrained (i.e., combination only). For two participants, training the components along with some combinations led to the most untrained targets acquired without direct teaching. For the other participant, training the combinations only led to the greatest proportion of untrained targets acquired without direct teaching. We discuss stimulus control promoted by each teaching arrangement and suggestions for future research on recombinative generalization.