Emergent symbolic relations in speakers and nonspeakers

Eight adults with developmental disabilities and four typically developing preschool children participated in an experiment studying emergent stimulus -stimulus relations after match-re-sample instruction. Participants were ta ught to match lexigrams (arbitrary graphic stimuli) to objects. Each object was functionally related to another object in the reaching set. For exampl e, brush and comb were members of the teaching set. Most participants were able to select objects when the objects were named in pretests. Post-teachi ng probes assessed emergent relations between spoken names and lexigrams. I n addition, we included probes to detect emergent relations between related lexigrams. That is, would participants select the lexigram for comb when t he experimenter displayed the lexigram for brush (without explicit teaching )? Two preschool children and five adults with developmental disabilities s howed emergent relations between lexigrams and spoken words. However, only two preschool children showed the emergent lexigram to related lexigram rel ations. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.