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Training Relational Language to Improve Reading Comprehension

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of strengthening participants’ relational abilities on measures of comprehension. We evaluated the effects of two phases of multiple exemplar training on reading comprehension: hierarchical relational training, and hierarchical framing under the contextual cues of “same” and “different”. Five participants with poor reading comprehension, but strong reading abilities, were trained in four components of hierarchical relational training. This phase was designed to increase the frequency and flexibility with which participants related properties to stimuli, and to assess if training in hierarchical relations improved participant’s ability to derive hierarchical relations between stimuli. The next phase of training required participants to discriminate relevant relations under contextual cues of “same” and “different”. The effects of training were examined on measures of reading comprehension and written expression. All but one participant showed improvements on one or more academic measures indicating a functional relationship between the language skills acquired and comprehension and written expression. These data have important implications for guiding research endeavors in behavior analysis and for informing practices in education. Limitations and directions for future research are discussed.