JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2017, 9999, n/a–n/a NUMBER 9999 ()

GO/NO-GO PROCEDURE WITH COMPOUND STIMULI WITH

CHILDREN WITH AUTISM
RAFAEL AUGUSTO SILVA AND PAULA DEBERT
UNIVERSIDADE DE SÃO PAULO INSTITUTO NACIONAL DE CIÊNCIA E TECNOLOGIA SOBRE COMPORTAMENTO,
COGNIÇÃO E ENSINO (INCT-ECCE)

The go/no-go with compound stimuli is an alternative to matching-to-sample to produce condi-

tional and emergent relations in adults. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness
of this procedure with two children diagnosed with autism. We trained and tested participants
to respond to conditional relations among arbitrary stimuli using the go/no-go procedure. Both
learned all the trained conditional relations without developing response bias or responding to
no-go trials. Participants demonstrated performance consistent with symmetry, but not
equivalence.
Key words: autism, compound stimuli, conditional discrimination, equivalence, go/no-go

Sidman (1971) showed that after training
some conditional relations (e.g., AB and BC)
using matching-to-sample (MTS), conditional
relations that were not directly trained (e.g., AC
and CA) emerged when tested in the absence of
programmed consequences. This allowed for
the development of a teaching technology to
establish socially valid relations in a fast and effi-
cient manner (e.g., Rehfeldt, 2011). However,
the establishment of conditional relations via
MTS with children diagnosed with autism may
depend upon modified teaching and testing
conditions (Eikeseth & Smith, 1992; McLay,
Sutherland, Church, & Tyler-Merrick, 2013).
One of the possible difficulties associated
with MTS is the development of position bias
(e.g., Bourret, Iwata, Harper, & North, 2012;
This study is based on a thesis submitted to the Uni-
versity of São Paulo in partial fulfillment of the require-
ments for an M.A. in Experimental Psychology. This
research was part of the scientific program of Instituto
Nacional de Ciência e Tecnologia sobre Comportamento,
Cognição e Ensino, with support from the Brazilian
National Research Council (CNPq, Grant # 465686/
2014–1) and the São Paulo Research Foundation (Grant
# 2014/50909–8).
Address correspondence to: Rafael Augusto Silva. Depar-
tamento de Psicologia Experimental, Universidade de São
Paulo, Av. Prof. Mello Moraes, 1721, São Paulo - SP, Brazil,
CEP: 05508-900. E-mail: rafael.augustosi@gmail.com
doi: 10.1002/jaba.421
© 2017 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
1
Galloway, 1967; Kangas & Branch, 2008).
Position bias may develop because selections
based on a specific location in the array (left,
middle, or right) produce intermittent rein-
forcement (Kangas & Branch, 2008). To rem-
edy this problem, extra instructional time
and/or effort modifying procedures may be
needed (Bourret et al., 2012; Galloway, 1967;
Kangas & Branch, 2008). Thus, the develop-
ment of an alternative to MTS that would
avoid position bias seems warranted.
An efficient alternative to MTS, which has
been investigated in basic research, is the go/no-
go procedure with compound stimuli
(e.g., Debert, Matos, & Mcllvane, 2007). One
of the advantages of this procedure is that com-
pound stimuli (two stimuli presented side-by-
side in a trial) are successively presented, and
the selection response is made in the unique
location provided, so no position bias can be
developed. Additionally, the go/no-go proce-
dure relies on a series of simple discriminations,
making it more appropriate for use with learners
lacking prerequisite skills for conditional dis-
crimination. Considering the importance of
basic research to inform applied research and
practice, the present study is the first attempt to
assess the use of the go/no-go procedure with
compound stimuli with children diagnosed with
autism.
2 RAFAEL AUGUSTO SILVA and PAULA DEBERT

METHOD compound (two side-by-side stimuli belonging

Participants, Setting and Materials to the same class) was presented, and not press-
ing the space bar (no-go) when a nonrelated
Participants were two 10-year old boys (Bob
compound (two side-by-side stimuli belonging
and Vinnie) diagnosed with autism. They fol-
to different classes) was presented. Incorrect
lowed two-step instructions and performed a
responses consisted of pressing the space bar
variety of self-care routines without prompts.
when a nonrelated compound was presented,
They could also repeat common words (general-
and not pressing when a related compound was
ized echoic repertoire), tact and mand for more
presented. The computer software recorded
than 200 items, answer questions such as “What
participant’s responses. Percentages of correct
is your name?” (intraverbals), and demonstrate
responses per session were calculated by adding
some autoclitic responses (e.g., “this one”).
the total number of correct responses divided
Although Vinnie engaged in three- to five-word
by 24 trials.
sentences, and manded and tacted independ-
We used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline
ently, his intraverbals were mostly prompted.
design across participants. Participants com-
Both participants demonstrated limited sight-
pleted the following experimental conditions:
word vocabulary. Participants’ listener behavior
equivalence relations pretest, pretraining, base-
was evaluated using the Portuguese translation
line relations training, baseline relations test,
of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test
symmetry relations test and equivalence rela-
(Capovilla et al., 1997), and their scores yielded
tions posttest.
an age equivalence of 6 years.
We conducted two to four sessions daily,
5 days per week, in a separate room at the parti-
Procedure
cipants’ school. Each session consisted of three
Equivalence relations pre- and posttests. Tests
blocks of eight trials or six blocks of four trials
were conducted before and after training to
depending on the experimental condition (see
evaluate whether participants would respond
below). During sessions, a participant sat at a
discriminatively to transitivity (AC) and equiva-
table with a computer equipped with the soft-
lence (CA) relations when no consequences
ware Compound® (Debert et al., 2007) that
were provided. Participants used the space bar
controlled stimuli presentation and recorded
to respond to each compound stimulus. Com-
participants’ responses. The experimenter sat on
pound stimuli were successively and randomly
the left side of the participant. Each compound
presented for 6 s followed by an intertrial inter-
stimulus consisted of two images presented side-
val of 3 s. Related compounds were A1C1,
by-side (adapted from Devany, Hayes, & Nel-
A2C2, C1A1 and C2A2 and nonrelated com-
son, 1986). The experimenter conducted a brief
pounds were A1C2, A2C1, C1A2 and C2A1
multiple-stimulus preference assessment
(see Figure 1). Each session consisted of three
(DeLeon, & Iwata, 1996) prior to the first ses-
blocks with eight trials each.
sion of each day. After a session, completion of
Prior to the beginning of the session, the
a token board (24 tokens) resulted in access to a
experimenter provided the following instruc-
preferred item for 2 min.
tion: “Let’s play a game. Press the key for cor-
rect figures, and do not press it for incorrect
Response Measurement and Experimental figures. Remember that sometimes you have to
Design press and sometimes you don’t. At the end of
Correct responses consisted of pressing the the game, you will find out how many you got
keyboard space bar (go) when a related correct.” The experimenter delivered praise
 GO/NO-GO PROCEDURE 3

Experimental
Related (Go) Nonrelated (No-go)
Phase
A1B1 A2B2 A1B2 A2B1

Baseline
Relations
B1C1 B2C2 B1C2 B2C1
Training

B1A1 B2A2 B1A2 B2A1

Symmetry
Relations
C1B1 C2B2 C1B2 C2B1
Test

A1C1 A2C2 A1C2 A2C1

Equivalence
Relations
Pre- and C1A1 C2A2 C1A2 C2A1
Post-test

Figure 1. Compound stimuli presented in each of the experimental phases.

contingent upon attending (i.e., sitting quietly,
looking at the experimenter and stimuli)
approximately every 30 s. Participants had to
score at chance levels (approximately 50% cor-
rect) during pretests to progress to the next
phase. The posttest was repeated for three ses-
sions to assess for delayed emergence.
Pretraining. We conducted pretraining to
familiarize participants with the task. The
experimenter provided the following instruc-
tion: “Press the key when two characters from
the same cartoon are presented, and do not
press when they are from different cartoons.”
Each of four familiar compound stimuli was
successively presented for 4 s. Related com-
pounds were two characters from the same car-
toon and nonrelated compounds were two
characters from different cartoons. Each session
consisted of six blocks of four trials each.
Correct responses were followed by the presen-
tation of a smiley face on the screen, the experi-
menter’s voice (“very good”) issued by the
software, praise by the experimenter, and a
token. Incorrect responses were followed by a
black screen for 2 s.
To prevent responding to all stimuli, the
experimenter covered the space bar with his
right hand as soon as a nonrelated compound
was presented. Initially, the experimenter
restricted the response during the full 4 s of the
compound stimulus presentation. The criterion
for decreasing the duration of this restriction
(prompt) was one session (24 trials) with a
minimum of 92% correct responses. The
restriction was gradually faded (4 s, 3 s, 2 s,
1 s, and no prompt). When correct responding
fell below 92% for two consecutive sessions,
the restriction was increased by 1 s. The
4 RAFAEL AUGUSTO SILVA and PAULA DEBERT
mastery criterion was 92% accuracy for two
consecutive sessions. The participants required
six (Bob) and 13 (Vinnie) sessions, respectively,
to learn the task during pretraining.
Baseline relations training. Participants
received the following instruction by the experi-
menter: “This is the same activity, but the fig-
ures will be different. You may begin.”
Procedures were the same as in pretraining
except that the compound stimuli were unfa-
miliar shapes (see Figure 1). Each session con-
sisted of three blocks of eight trials each. The
training sequence was AB, BC, and mixed AB
and BC relations. The criterion to move to
each of these training relations and to the next
phase was two consecutive sessions with 92%
of correct responses with no prompt.
Baseline relations test. This condition was
identical to baseline relations training described
above, with the exception that the experimenter
withheld programmed consequences and
prompts. This served to verify that participants
could emit independent correct responses to
tests in the absence of programmed conse-
quences. Immediately after each session, the
experimenter provided access to one of the pre-
ferred items for 2 min to maintain the partici-
pant’s motivation. The passing criterion to
proceed to the next phase was 92% correct in
one session.
Symmetry tests. We tested for accurate
responding in the presence of the BA and CB
compounds. Otherwise, this condition was
identical to the equivalence relations test as
described above.
Treatment Integrity
Treatment integrity (TI) was assessed during
33% of the sessions by a second observer.
Trials were recorded as correct when the experi-
menter used the prompt procedure for the pre-
scribed duration and praised correct responses,
did not praise incorrect responses, and provided
no feedback during testing trials. We calculated
TI by dividing the number of correctly imple-
mented trials by the total number of trials and
converting the result to a percentage. Mean
integrity was 99.6% (range, 82%-100%) across
participants. We did not collect interobserver
agreement given that data collection was
automated.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 2 shows the percentage of independ-
ent correct responses across conditions for Bob
and Vinnie. During the equivalence relations
pretest, participants pressed the space bar in
almost all trials (about 50% accuracy). Bob and
Vinnie required 36 (864 trials) and
18 (432 trials) sessions, respectively, to reach
criterion during training. Vinnie and Bob
passed the baseline relations test and demon-
strated the emergence of symmetry within one
(24 trials) and three (72 trials) sessions, respec-
tively. During equivalence relations posttests,
both participants performed at 50% within
three sessions, responding in almost all trials.
Although none of the participants passed
equivalence relations posttests, our results
showed that the go/no-go procedure with com-
pound stimuli was successful in establishing
baseline conditional relations (AB and BC) in
children with autism without the development
of position bias (Galloway, 1967). Most nota-
bly, the prompting procedure used during
training was effective in preventing participants
from responding across all stimulus
compounds.
Although failing to accurately perform dur-
ing equivalence tests is not an unusual outcome
with this population (McLay et al., 2013), it is
possible that failures were related to lack of
experience with multiple exemplar instruction
for this type of responding (Rosales, Rehfeldt, &
Lovett, 2011), poor verbal skills (Lee, Miguel,
Darcey, & Jennings, 2015), or simply a prod-
uct of prolonged testing conditions in the
absence of reinforcement. The inclusion of
 GO/NO-GO PROCEDURE
Figure 2. Percentage of independent correct responses (go and no-go) across conditions for Bob (upper panel) and
Vinnie (lower panel).
symmetry tests served to verify whether partici-
pants had the prerequisite relation for equiva-
lence (Sidman, 1994). However, exposure to
unreinforced symmetry trials could have nega-
tively affected subsequent equivalence class per-
formances. Future studies should include
multiple exemplar instruction, as well as assess
whether reinforced testing conditions would
yield better outcomes (e.g., LeBlanc, Miguel,
Cummings, Goldsmith, & Carr, 2003).
Another explanation for the failures observed
during equivalence tests was that participants
may have learned to respond to compounds as
single stimuli as opposed to attending to each
of their elements, as well as their relation. This
type of stimulus control would lead to positive
outcomes in symmetry tests, as observed when
5
the location of the elements of compounds are
simply reversed (a form of stimulus generaliza-
tion), but not in equivalence tests. Future stud-
ies could evaluate different ways to avoid the
development of this type of control, including
teaching simple discrimination of stimulus
components (e.g., Miguel et al., 2015).
This was the first attempt to use the go/no-
go procedure with compound stimuli as an
alternative to establish conditional relations
with children diagnosed with autism. Our
results showed that is possible to establish base-
line (AB and BC) conditional discriminations
using a simple discrimination procedure invol-
ving go/no-go responses without developing
position bias. Future studies should attempt to
produce equivalence-class performances, as well
6 RAFAEL AUGUSTO SILVA and PAULA DEBERT
as compare the effectiveness of this procedure
against MTS. We hope to inspire researchers to
investigate new and potentially more efficient
technologies to teach conditional discrimina-
tion and symbolic behavior to children with
autism.
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Received November 10, 2015
Final acceptance February 14, 2017
Action Editor, Caio Miguel