Discrimination Training

What is discrimination training?

 With respect to receptive language – e.g., give me the shoe vs. the cup

Why to teach it?

 SD vs S delta

When to teach it?

 It’s a beginner program, but you must have some instructional control first
 Pairing
 Some early ESDM skills first – joint attention, follows point, come here, sit down, etc.

*Note: Some kids don’t need this broken down this much – which means that they don’t need to be
taught discrimination either.

1 item out (I typically start with 3-D functional items – things that are meaningful to the student
**Kids don’t always have picture to object correspondence)
 In the past, we have used motivating items, but sometimes the client will only pick up what
they want, not listen to the instruction
 Hold out your hand and say, “Give me [item]” (or just item name)

2 items out – 1 item + a non-preferred – or if using pictures 1 item out + a blank picture

3 items out – 1 item + 2 non-preferred – or 1 item + 2 blanks

3 items out – item + other item (non-trained) + non-preferred/blank

3 items out – item + 2 other untrained items

*Then go through this whole process again with another item (but leave out the first item you taught)

Then include the random rotation