Spelling Instruction by Stimulus Pairing in Japanese Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders: Effects of Stimulus Presentation Order

Students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulties in learning stimulus relations in spelling. Using the two-stimulus pairing procedure, we examined the emergence of stimulus relations between Japanese and English words by comparing the spelling performance of five students with ASD with that of five typically developing students. In the Japanese-English pairing procedure, a Japanese word was presented first, followed by its English translation, and in the English-Japanese pairing, an English word was presented first, followed by its Japanese translation. Training effects were evaluated with a sign test and analysis of variance. All the students correctly spelled the English words in both procedures. The Japanese-English pairing procedure required fewer training blocks than the English-Japanese pairing procedure. In the Japanese-English pairing, students with ASD required fewer training blocks than typically developing students. These results suggest that presenting already established words (i.e., Japanese) first might better facilitate the emergence of stimulus relations in a stimulus pairing procedure.