Establishing words and objects as functionally equivalent through manual sign training

Abstract

This study was designed to determine if sign-object and sign-word training would lead to acquisition of word-object associations and to test the proposal that if two stimuli control the same response, training a new response to one of the stimuli would increase the probability of the second stimulus also controlling that response. The participants were six institutionalized retarded males, each having some receptive and productive speech as well as imitative motor and verbal skills. Nonsense words, signs, and objects were used as the stimuli in this study. All participants were sequentially trained to: (a) pair the objects with their identical matches, (b) imitate the manual signs, (c) pair the manual signs with the objects, (d) imitate the nonsense words, and (e) pair the manual signs with the words. Following this training, participants were given receptive and productive word-object association probes. All participants performed at an 87 percent correct level or better on the first receptive probes, and all performed at a 73 percent correct level or better on the first productive probes. These individuals demonstrated that following sign-object and sign-word training, they could correctly associate the word with the object.