Evaluating the establishment and maintenance of visual-visual and gustatory-visual equivalence relations in adults with developmental disabilities

Four adults with developmental disabilities were taught to make conditional discriminations between either pictures and their corresponding printed English and Spanish words, or tastes and their corresponding printed English and Spanish words. Participants required more training trials to master the visual-visual conditional discriminations than the gustatory-visual conditional discriminations, and 3 of the 4 participants performed with higher accuracy on visual equivalence class test trials than gustatory-visual equivalence class test trials. A follow-up equivalence test conducted 30 to 40 days later showed substantially greater stability over time for the gustatory-visual classes than for the visual classes, for all participants. That participants acquired gustatory-visual conditional discriminations, as well as equivalence classes based on those conditional discriminations, may have relevance for incorporating gustatory stimuli into mand training sessions, as well as for teaching individuals with sensory impairments in other modalities.