Abstract

CORREA, Diogo Rodrigues; ASSIS, Grauben José Alves de  and  BRINO, Ana Leda de Faria. Effects of overlapping words on the composition of sentences under conditional control. Acta comport. [online]. 2012, vol.20, n.3, pp. 299-315. ISSN 0188-8145.

The objective of the present study was to investigate the effects of training involving overlapping words on active and passive voice sentence production. Additionally, the study investigated the establishment and expansion of conditional control over each type of sentence and evaluated performance maintenance after 45 days without contact with the contingencies of the study. Participants were six children aged eight to ten years. Two sentences in the active voice and two in the passive voice were taught by overlapping. After teaching that four sentences, the active and the passive voice sentences construction were conditionally related to the color green and red, respectively. Substitutability tests checked the production of new sentences under conditional control. All participants learned the baseline sentences. In tests of substitutability, a participant has reached 87.5%, two had 75% and for others, the percentage of correct responses was 62.5%, 50%, and 37.5%. A second study was carried out with three of the six participants of the Study 1, in which there was an increasing in the performance requirement on conditional baseline before substitutability tests were applied. Two of the three participants performed with 100% and 87.5% accuracy in those tests. In both studies, only one participant showed maintenance of that repertoire. The second study suggests that the teaching of overlapping words can produces the composition of sentences with few errors. In addition, test results indicated the emergence of conditional control over new sentences. Additional studies are needed to assess conditions that are sufficient for the maintenance of this repertoire.

Keywords : ordinal relations; overlapping words; sentences written; conditional discrimination; children.

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