Or assistance, described in an earlier section, represents one means of minimizing reliance on prompts. Some problems in the acquisition of language and communication skills may be related to overselectivity in responses to auditory (speech) or visual (e.g., printed words) cues (e.g., Koegel, Schreibman, Britten, Laitinen, 1979; Schreibman, 1997). Dube (2009) describes some examples of this type of problem from special-education classrooms. In one instance, a student was learning to read sets of printed words aloud, with new words added individually to an expanding set. Progress was good as exit, men, walk, and push were learned. The fifth word was pull. As soon as it was introduced, Leupeptin (hemisulfate) custom synthesis naming accuracy fell, and almost every error was saying push when pull was presented. After several sessions, the student also began to say pull on some trials when push was presented. In subsequent sessions, the teachers sometimes eliminated one or the other of these words, push or pull, but accuracy did not improve. Finally, after 15 sessions, both push and pull were dropped. Accuracy recovered immediately, and there were no problems as the new word sun was introduced. Later, however, when the word mug was introduced, accuracy once again fell due to errors saying men when mug was presented. Apparently, the learning was overselective in that it was restricted to the initial letters of the words. It is noteworthy that the problem went undetected at first, until circumstances changes so that the overselected cue was present in more than one word. The Matching to Sample Task and Overselectivity Many of the studies of overselective attention in individuals with developmental disabilities use what is called a matching-to-sample paradigm. The use of matching to sample to study overselectivity in individuals with developmental disabilities began to increase approximately 30 years ago (e.g., Mackie Mackay, 1982; Schneider Salzberg, 1982;NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptAugment Altern Commun. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 June 01.Dube and WilkinsonPageWhiteley, Zaparniuk, Asmundson, 1987). To evaluate overselectivity by matching-tosample methods, trials begin with the presentation of multi-element or multi-dimensional sample stimuli. Thus, a participant might see a sample such as AB presented on a computer screen. After an observation period, the sample is removed from view and an array of comparison stimuli follows immediately. At first, the target comparison may be identical to the sample and there are no overlapping features among the comparison elements; so if the sample were AB, the choices among the comparisons might be AB, CD, and EF, with the identical AB as the target choice. Note that on such trials, correct responding is possible even if the participant is overselectively attending to just one element of the sample. A participant who attended only to the second element, for example (the B) is able to select correctly, even Olumacostat glasaretil cancer without having attended to the full stimulus. The tests for overselectivity include trials in which only one of the individual sample elements (or a subset of them) is presented. For example, on some trials the comparison displays may consist of only A, C, and E and on other trials the comparisons are B, D, and F. On trials with sample AB, a participant who overselectively attended only to the B will perform at chance levels on the first type of trial (which presented A, C, an.Or assistance, described in an earlier section, represents one means of minimizing reliance on prompts. Some problems in the acquisition of language and communication skills may be related to overselectivity in responses to auditory (speech) or visual (e.g., printed words) cues (e.g., Koegel, Schreibman, Britten, Laitinen, 1979; Schreibman, 1997). Dube (2009) describes some examples of this type of problem from special-education classrooms. In one instance, a student was learning to read sets of printed words aloud, with new words added individually to an expanding set. Progress was good as exit, men, walk, and push were learned. The fifth word was pull. As soon as it was introduced, naming accuracy fell, and almost every error was saying push when pull was presented. After several sessions, the student also began to say pull on some trials when push was presented. In subsequent sessions, the teachers sometimes eliminated one or the other of these words, push or pull, but accuracy did not improve. Finally, after 15 sessions, both push and pull were dropped. Accuracy recovered immediately, and there were no problems as the new word sun was introduced. Later, however, when the word mug was introduced, accuracy once again fell due to errors saying men when mug was presented. Apparently, the learning was overselective in that it was restricted to the initial letters of the words. It is noteworthy that the problem went undetected at first, until circumstances changes so that the overselected cue was present in more than one word. The Matching to Sample Task and Overselectivity Many of the studies of overselective attention in individuals with developmental disabilities use what is called a matching-to-sample paradigm. The use of matching to sample to study overselectivity in individuals with developmental disabilities began to increase approximately 30 years ago (e.g., Mackie Mackay, 1982; Schneider Salzberg, 1982;NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author ManuscriptAugment Altern Commun. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 June 01.Dube and WilkinsonPageWhiteley, Zaparniuk, Asmundson, 1987). To evaluate overselectivity by matching-tosample methods, trials begin with the presentation of multi-element or multi-dimensional sample stimuli. Thus, a participant might see a sample such as AB presented on a computer screen. After an observation period, the sample is removed from view and an array of comparison stimuli follows immediately. At first, the target comparison may be identical to the sample and there are no overlapping features among the comparison elements; so if the sample were AB, the choices among the comparisons might be AB, CD, and EF, with the identical AB as the target choice. Note that on such trials, correct responding is possible even if the participant is overselectively attending to just one element of the sample. A participant who attended only to the second element, for example (the B) is able to select correctly, even without having attended to the full stimulus. The tests for overselectivity include trials in which only one of the individual sample elements (or a subset of them) is presented. For example, on some trials the comparison displays may consist of only A, C, and E and on other trials the comparisons are B, D, and F. On trials with sample AB, a participant who overselectively attended only to the B will perform at chance levels on the first type of trial (which presented A, C, an.
