G.19 Design and Evaluate Procedures to Promote Emergent Relationships and Generative Performance

In the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA), creating and evaluating procedures that foster emergent relationships and generative performance is essential to improving learning outcomes. These methods help students form new, untrained responses based on skills they already possess, leading to a deeper and more flexible understanding of the material.

Stimulus Equivalence: This occurs when a student shows that he or she understands that different stimuli are related in ways that have not been directly taught to him or her. For example, if he or she is taught that A equals B and B equals C, he or she will understand on his or her own that A equals C.

Generative Learning: Occurs when a student uses skills they already know to learn new skills without the need for direct instruction.

Emerging Stimulus Relationships: These are new connections that a student makes between items that have not been directly taught to him or her but are similar to connections he or she has learned.

The key idea is untrained learning—how students make new connections without explicit teaching.

• Reflexivity: Occurs when a student matches an item to himself without being taught to do so.

  Example: Jamie is learning about shapes in class. He has been taught to match circles to circles and squares to squares. One day, without prior instruction, Jamie matches triangles to other triangles, showing reflexivity.

• Symmetry: Occurs when a student understands that if A equals B, then B equals A.

  Example: Alex learned that the word "cat" corresponds to a picture of a cat. Later, when shown a picture of a cat, Alex says "cat," showing symmetry.

• Transitivity: Occurs when a student understands that if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.

  Example: Taylor learned that "dog" corresponds to a picture of a dog (A = B) and that a picture of a dog corresponds to the word "dog" (B = C). Taylor then understands that "perro" is the same as "dog" (A = C), showing transitivity.

To implement these concepts in practice, activities and lessons can be designed that encourage students to make connections between different stimuli and to apply learned skills to new situations. These activities can include games, matching exercises, and the use of educational technology that promotes interactive learning.

Fostering emergent relationships and generative performance is crucial to effective learning. Through careful design and assessment of specific procedures, educators can significantly improve students’ ability to make new connections and apply skills in diverse contexts, ultimately improving educational outcomes.