Effects of Sufficient Exemplar Training on Naming

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of a sufficient exemplar procedure on establishment of naming. Naming was defined as responding as a listener and speaker after hearing and observing another person give name to the object. A non-concurrent multiple probe design across three children with autism was used to evaluate the training procedure. Naming probes were conducted to establish baseline for each participant. In the intervention phase naming probes were conducted prior to the introduction of each new object, and only response classes where the participants failed were trained (i.e. either listener or speaker or both). New objects were trained one at a time until naming occurred, and then generalization probes to other settings and people were conducted. Results showed that two out of three participants showed naming skills, and the third participant improved her performance. The results suggests that naming could be established using a sufficient exemplar training procedure, and that the training procedure seems suitable for monitoring generalization effects. This allows for a large degree of individualization.