Abstract

Currently all students in our practicum site are learning to use the icon exchange which is based off of the Picture Exchange Communication System (Bondy & Frost, 1994). Students exchange icons corresponding to the items that they are motivated for to receive those items. This sequence of behaviors is sometimes very difficult for students to learn especially when learning discrimination of icons. We found our students were often not observing the icons before or during the exchange. This kind of problem is sometimes seen in other procedures such as matching-to-sample. Some studies reported that requiring an observing response improved accuracy during matching-to-sample. Based upon these studies, we think an observing response in the early phases of the icon exchange system may facilitate discrimination in the icon exchange. The purpose of the current study is to establish an observing response during an icon exchange chain. We will require our participants to observe icon before they exchange icon and test whether establishing this observing response will facilitate learning discrimination of icons. Thus, our goal is to contribute to the improvement of our children’s learning to use the icon exchange system by establishing the observing response.