COMPARISON OF DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING AND DISCRETE TRIAL TRAINING WITH INSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK ON THE EFFICIENCY OF PRIMARY AND SECONDARY TARGETS

Author

• Karli Anne Wright, Southern Illinois University CarbondaleFollow

Date of Award

5-1-2026

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Behavior Analysis and Therapy

First Advisor

Shawler, Lesley

Abstract

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often struggle with verbal behavior, social, behavioral, and academic challenges that can create difficulties in educational settings. These difficulties have led to the development of effective teaching strategies to aid students in learning. Instructive feedback (IF) has been used to increase the number of targets a student may learn without having to respond to all stimuli presented to them. Secondary targets (ST) are targets presented during IF that do not require participant feedback and consequences are not provided if participants respond to them. Direct teaching, on the other hand, provides feedback, through reinforcement and prompting to all targets presented. Despite the potential for IF to maximize efficiency of teaching, many studies have presented mixed findings related to the actual efficiency of the procedure. Two reviews of the IF literature have been conducted that found that of the articles reviewed, only 58.2%-64% of ST were gained when presented through IF. Additionally, many studies have shown an extensive amount of trial blocks are required before participants acquire the ST in IF. Similarly, other studies have found the need to directly teach the ST due to their participants not acquiring them through the IF procedure. Despite these mixed results, few studies have directly compared directly teaching both primary and ST to directly teaching primary targets and providing ST through IF. This study compared the two teaching strategies to determine which method was most effective and efficient when teaching animal names and their biomes to three children with autism. Results found that directly teaching both targets was most effective for two participants, while IF was most effective for the third participant. Moreover, the DTT-only procedure was most efficient for two participants.