Conditional discrimination errors are very common in children with autism, especially
intermediate learners.
When we say conditional discrimination, we mean that a child makes errors.
Say you have a paper towel versus toilet paper, they're very similar.
The child makes an error not because they're not paying attention, but because they don't
have the language skills for that finer discrimination.
Hi, I'm Dr Mary Barbera, autism mom board certified behavior analyst online course creator
and bestselling author of the verbal behavior approach.
Each week I provide you with some of my ideas about turning autism around so if you haven't
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Today I'm sharing a small excerpt from a question during one of my live Q and A sessions discussing
how you can help kids with autism with conditional discrimination errors.
Say you have a paper towel versus toilet paper, they're very similar or a chair versus a stool.
Um, or it can be asking a question like Mark Sundberg gives the example, what do you take
to the beach versus what do you wear to the beach?
Today I am going to be talking all about conditional discrimination.
Answering multiple questions for one picture.
So he knows his shapes, colors, sizes, height, temperature, et cetera, et cetera.
He's great with adjectives, but when shown a picture of a blue triangle, for example,
he will always answer triangle first, no matter what you ask him.
So when I show him, slow him down and say, no, listen, he gets it.
So basically it seems that something has determined how he's going to answer it, but when slowed
down he can get it right.
Obviously this is an example and makes it sound like tit for tat programming, but it
isn't because this really makes webbing challenging since he's not listening.
What color is a duck?
Quack, quack, no.
Listen, I said color, what color is a duck?
And then he gets it right.
Or he says, he sees a ball.
If I say what shape is a ball?
He might answer roll ball if we talk about rolling a ball earlier.
So, um, this is a great question and I'm glad you asked it.
This is a conditional discrimination error and it's very common in intermediate learners
with autism.
Um, I have had multiple problems with Lucas and other intermediate learners with these
types of issues.
The reason that your son is having trouble answering the question the first time, he
shouldn't have to listen hard.
It should be fluent.
So you saying no, listen and slowing him down and just keep adding.
Oh, now we're gonna talk about temperature.
Now we're gonna talk about shape.
Now we're gonna, you know, you're just piling it on and this base is getting very unstable.
So I would say, um, one of the really good programs that helped Lucas is, and you can
do this with objects or you can do this with pictures, but I might try objects first.
So, so we would have, um, I'm just going to hold them up just because I don't have a high
table.
Okay.
So we have, uh, uh, elephant, a horse and a ball.
So the elephants gray, the horse is brown and the ball is blue primarily.
Now it'd be even better, now, I just grabbed these like five minutes before this Q and
A session, but it would be even better if the horse was all brown and the, you know,
the elephant was all grey, like the ball is all blue.
Um, so what Dr. Carbone did was he, because, and the reason I'm using Dr. Carbone as such
an example is because as part of the Verbal Behavior Project, years ago, from 2003 to
2010, we actually went up to the Carbone clinic in New York City or outside of New York City.
And we did 2 day sessions, like 8 times.
So a lot of my techniques, especially for early, uh, intermediate learners are based
on, uh, some of the, uh, programs that Dr. Carbone taught us and then my modifications
because a lot of times it didn't work with Lucas.
So he taught me all about intraverbal webbing but I couldn't get Lucas to do it until I
came up with my systems.
But one of the programs I saw pretty early on, um, more than a decade ago was what is
it, what color?
So instead of, so this might be good for your son in terms of the horse is, and I would
be pointing to it, I just have to hold it up so you can see it.
So instead of saying what is it all the time, it might be what color and you can, you can
say what color is it?
But you see what color is it and what is it are really close.
So for Lucas and for many of my clients, we actually had to go back to what color, what
is it?
What is it, what color, what is it?
What is it, what color?
So it wasn't what color, what is it, what is it?
It wasn't alternating.
It was random, sometimes 2 in a row, sometimes 3 in a row.
We also could do, instead of just that, we could also ask questions um, and for Dr. Carbone
recommended trial by trial data.
And so when I came home and tried to teach this to Lucas like this, what color, what
color, what is it, what color, you know, and I had like 5 objects or 6, um, he was like
50% accurate.
So that's not good when we only have really 2 questions we're, we're talking about and
I just couldn't figure out how to get Lucas more fluent with this.
Then I saw a case study done by somebody in the Verbal Behavior Project and um, that really
helped.
And I'm going to show you how to pull it back even farther, but I would pick 1 discrimination
like color and I would um, do more trial by trial, mixing that up, taking data, making
sure, and then if he is 90 or a hundred percent with what color, what is it?
I would say, what color is it?
What is it?
What color is it?
What is it?
Um, what is it?
What is it?
What color?
You could also say, what's this part called?
Like you could mix things in to make it less rote.
What color?
What do you do with this?
Roll it.
Um, I probably wouldn't do shape and color at the same time with this, but this was recommended
by Dr. Carbone.
This didn't work with Luke for Lucas because it was too hard.
So what this, these other teachers taught me was to peel back the onion a little bit
farther and do, um, same item.
These are straws, different colors.
You could use forks, you can use blocks, you can use straws.
But you must use something where you can use markers, but you must do something where straw
is fluent, marker is fluent.
They don't have conditional discrimination errors between marker and crayon otherwise
it’s gonna just mess things up even farther.
So you pick one stable item.
I just grabbed straws here.
Um, and these are old straws.
If Amanda Kelly's watching, she's very much into no straws so I have paper straws now
these are just like several years old.
So I grabbed them.
But then you would do, what is it, what is it, what color, what color, what color, what
is it, what color?
And we'd get, get a child fluent with this.
We get a child fluent with forks, blocks, crayons.
And I would, you know, before you go taking it into the next level of what's, what's this
say?
You know, so, so what, what's it, what does this say?
Could be one naay, parts we could move in, we could, you could move it into shapes too.
So he has to really attend, what it sounds like is happening is in the natural environment.
You're asking him questions and he's kind of just answering based on, um, you know,
what's, what's the most usual question, which is what is it?
Um, dr Mark Sundberg will say like, what do you wear to the beach versus what do you take
to the beach?
We change one word, we changed the whole answer.
So that's where we have to go back and we have to do the intraverbal subtest, make sure
you're not teaching, uh, you know, really hard stuff before that base is solid and bringing
this back.
So, um, hopefully that's helpful.
Feel free to take a video of what is it, what color is it, what shape is it?
Um, especially if you're not seeing 90 to 100% accuracy, it's not time to move on to
adding functions and adding more adjectives.
And it's, uh, I would stop the whole, no, listen, slow down because that's just, uh,
feeding into his, um, lack of attention and conditional discrimination errors.
And we want to keep it 8 positives to every negative.
So every time you say, slow down or no, listen, that's a negative and we just need this to
be fluid.
So, um, I would think of it not as a behavior issue, more as a language conditional discrimination
issue.
I hope you enjoyed this short snippet.
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