A Stimulus Control Analysis of Attending
Richard Serna

Funded by NICHD, RO1 HD37663
Co-Investigator:  William J. McIlvane

This project is a five-year study of stimulus control acquisition in individuals with severe to moderate intellectual disabilities. The program will focus on attending and its role in effecting transfer of control within and across stimulus dimensions. Despite years of research in many laboratories, no satisfactory process-level account has emerged to explain stimulus control development and transfer. As a consequence, the many successes and too-frequent failures of transfer-based teaching programs are only poorly understood. The research program will help in developing a general theoretical account of transfer, a general theory of stimulus control acquisition, and a more effective, better understood teaching technology for people with intellectual disabilities. The empirical foundation for the project derives from a series of methodological studies that have been conducted over the past five years, as well as other basic research studies, conducted in Shriver laboratories and others. Those methodological studies sought reliable procedures for teaching individuals with mental retardation to relate physically dissimilar stimuli (e.g., a picture and a corresponding printed word). The findings have clarified the nature of the problem we face and have led us to reconsider longstanding assumptions about stimulus control development and transfer. For example, do the gradual stimulus changes in transfer programs produce gradual changes in stimulus control or does transfer occur in a different manner than previously assumed? Are failures of programmed teaching procedures due to stimulus control transfer failures or merely to the wrong type of transfer? Are the variable outcomes of transfer procedures inevitable or can we develop a principled approach to reduce that variability? We believe that the theoretical and methodological foundation now exists to begin to answer these and other longstanding questions about stimulus control transfer and stimulus control development more generally. Answering those questions will advance not only theory but also our ability to teach people with intellectual disabilities more effectively. Research-to-practice studies are included to validate key principles and procedures in applied settings.

By understanding better the determinants of transfer, we hope to help remove barriers to effective instruction for many individuals with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities.