Peer-reviewed article
Appetitive Pavlovian conditioning in two inclusive kindergarten classrooms.
Colombo RA, Mahmoudi S, Wright WB, Huang YH, Madden GJ ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study tested whether Pavlovian conditioning (pairing a signal with something positive) could work in inclusive kindergarten classrooms with both typically developing children and children with developmental disabilities or autism. Children were exposed to conditioning trials during normal classroom activities. Typically developing children showed strong conditioned responses to the signal, while children with disabilities showed weaker responses unless the teacher explicitly explained the connection between the signal and the positive outcome.
Key points
- CS+ (paired signal) evoked significantly more positive emotional responding and attention in typically developing children in both classrooms
- Children with developmental disabilities showed significantly more CS+-evoked attention but with smaller effect sizes than typically developing peers
- Positive emotional responding to CS+ in children with developmental disabilities occurred only when the teacher verbally specified the contingency
- The study included mixed groups of typically developing children and children eligible for special education or diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder
- Procedural refinements like explicit teacher explanation may be necessary for conditioning to influence adaptive behavior in children with developmental disabilities
Limitations
The study does not report longer-term follow-up outcomes or measure whether the conditioned responses actually influenced adaptive operant behavior in practice. The sample size, specific participant numbers, and demographic details are not provided in the abstract.
Abstract
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a classwide appetitive Pavlovian conditioning protocol implemented in two inclusive kindergarten classrooms. Each classroom enrolled similar distributions of typically developing children and children who were either eligible for special education services or diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Two Pavlovian conditioning trials (CS+ ➔ US) and two unpaired trials (CS- ➔ no US) per day were superimposed on normal classroom activities at random times. Conditioned responses (i.e., positive emotional responding and attention directed to the CS) were recorded during the CS+ and CS- events. In both classrooms-one in which the teacher verbally specified the Pavlovian contingency and one in which they did not-the CS+ evoked significantly more of both conditioned responses in typically developing children. Children with developmental disabilities showed significantly more CS+-evoked attention, but the effect size was smaller than among typically developing children. The CS+ did not evoke significantly more positive emotional responding in the children with developmental disabilities unless the teacher verbally specified the CS+ ➔ US contingency. Such procedural refinements may be important if a therapeutic appetitive CS is to influence adaptive operant behavior via, for example, conditioned reinforcement or Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer in children with developmental disabilities.