Pairing discriminative stimuli with unique reinforcers provides an additional cue to correct responding. In the current study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the differential outcomes procedure in teaching novel tacts and facilitating transfer of tacts to novel discriminative stimuli. Four children diagnosed with developmental or intellectual disability were taught a unique pair of related tacts both under a differential outcomes condition and under a nondifferential outcomes condition where the reinforcers were uncorrelated with the sample stimuli. In the former, the different outcomes were two forms of the same reinforcer. Three out of four participants met the mastery criterion sooner under the differential outcomes condition. Two participants also generalized to novel stimuli under the differential outcomes condition. When we tested for the inclusion of the reinforcers in the stimulus class, three participants demonstrated the acquisition of emergent stimulus–outcomes and response–outcomes relations. The study provides support for the use of the differential outcomes procedure as a cost-effective means of enhancing the acquisition of discriminated responses in an applied setting.

将歧视性刺激与独特的强化剂搭配使用，可以提供额外的提示来纠正反应。在当前的研究中，我们评估了差异结局程序在教授新手法和促进将手法转移到新的判别性刺激中的有效性。四个诊断为发育或智力残疾的儿童在差异结果条件和非强化结果与样本刺激无关的非差异结果条件下，接受了一对独特的相关技巧。在前者中，不同的结果是同一补强剂的两种形式。在差异结果条件下，四分之三的参与者很快达到了掌握标准。两名参与者在不同结局条件下还推广了新型刺激。当我们测试将刺激物包括在刺激类中时，三名参与者证明了获得紧急刺激－结果和反应－结果关系。这项研究为使用差异结果程序提供了支持，该程序是在应用环境中增强获得差异反应的一种经济有效的方法。