Using Stimulus Equivalence Training Procedures to Teach Receptive Emotional Labeling in a Child with Autism Spectrum Disorder

— Effects on Other’s Emotional Understanding and Emotional Self-expression —

Abstract

This study examined correlations between other’s emotional understanding modalities and the effects on emotional self-expression using stimulus equivalence training procedures. The participant was a five-year-old boy with autism spectrum disorder. The study used a pre-post design. Training and testing were conducted in a university’s clinical treatment playroom. Four training conditions using various emotional states (happiness, anger, sadness, and fear) were used. Other’s emotional understanding modalities were schematic faces expressing emotions, oral emotion labels, cartoons depicting emotional situations, and enactments of the emotional situation cartoons. The in-session context of emotional self-expression was natural. The participant learned to identify relationships between the emotional situation cartoons and oral emotion labels. In the training program, the participant was asked “How is he feeling?” before being presented with stimuli; emotional understanding and self-expression were observed. The participant’s percentage of correct responses increased in only one of the stimulus type conditions. Results are discussed regarding stimulus generalization for emotional self-expression.