Classes de equivalência e expansão de repertórios verbais autoclíticos em crianças com diagnóstico de autismo

Abstract

The possible identity between equivalence relations and functional classes is consistent with the proposal that all elements arbitrarily related in the contingence can participate in the classes. This proposal makes it feasible obtaining equivalence relations properties via three-term contingencies. Additionally, the applied potential of class formation procedures in advancing verbal repertoires in children diagnosed with autism remains underexplored. The present dissertation includes two studies. Study 1 investigated stimulus class formation (via procedure of repeated reversals of simple discrimination [RRDS] using compound class-specific consequences) and the junction of classes formed via RRDS with classes formed via MTS. In Study 2, RRDS and MTS procedures with compound class-specific consequences, were used to produced formation/expansion of arbitrary classes "female / male" and the productivity of verbal relations including linguistic coordination of gender. Participants were two children diagnosed with autism. In Study 1, RRDS training with ABC and BCD stimulus sets was performed, besides “tests for functional class formation”; “test for equivalence relations AD, BD and DC”, “arbitrary MTS training DE and tests for ED and EC relations”; “tests for functional class formation BCDE”. Both participants showed evidence of class formation. The data obtained with both participants confirm the expansion of classes. This set of data suggests that findings documenting functional and equivalence classes reflect the same behavioral phenomena (substitutability of arbitrarily related elements) via different procedures. In Study 2, the stimuli were pictures of objects and stimuli "a" and "o" which were related to the classes "masculine" and "feminine". RRDS were processed with stimulus sets ABCDE, besides “MTS AF”, “tests in the context of simple discrimination with stimulus sets BCDEF”, and “generalization tests” (tasks that simulated the educational context) to check the formation of classes in other contexts and with new stimuli. The results showed the establishment and incorporation of new stimuli in classes "masculine" and "feminine" and expansion of classes. The accuracy of results in productivity test was above 90%, indicating that performance obtained in class formation procedure remained accurate when stimulus control tasks were presented in new ways, more similar to academic tasks. This type of result encourages the use of such procedures in the construction of complex stimulus control of education programs with children diagnosed with autism.