O teste ABLA e suas implicações para o ensino de pessoas com autismo e distúrbios do desenvolvimento.

The ABLA test and its implications for teaching children with autism and developmental disabilities.

Assessing repertoires is an important step in the development of behavior-analytic interventions for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities. Behavioral measures about the ease or difficulty in learning certain repertoires could guide the selection of target behaviors and the development of a comprehensive intervention for individuals in such conditions. The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities - Revised (ABLA-R) is an assessment tool that measures the current ability of a developmentally disabled individual to learn six tasks, referred as levels. Learning each level requires the establishment of a different type of stimulus control: a simple motor response (Level 1), a position discrimination (Level 2), a simple visual discrimination (Level 3), a visual quasi-identity matchingto- sample (Level 4), a visual-visual arbitrary matching-to-sample (Level 5), and an auditory-visual conditional discrimination (Level 6). The present article aims to characterize ABLA-R test, reviewing the empirical studies about its predictive validity and discuss the implications for practitioners in the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. The literature reviewed suggests that the ABLA-R levels are hierarchically organized (passing in higher levels imply in passing in lower levels, whereas failing in higher levels predicts failure in lower levels). Also, a great number of published studies indicated that the ABLA-R has predictive validity for predicting success in learning similar tasks that require the same type of discriminations assessed in the mastered ABLA-R levels. These results have important implications, as the selection of behavioral targets could be matched to the student's current ABLAR level to increase the probability of success in acquiring new skills and to reduce the likelihood of engaging in problem behavior. Therefore, the ABLA-R test could be a useful assessment tool for practitioners when selecting behavioral targets and defining some teaching procedures parameters (e.g., the use of visual or verbal prompts). However, the ABLA-R has some limitations. As the higher level assesses the ease to establish auditory-discriminations in a two-choice matching task, individuals with more complex verbal and relational repertoires may pass all six levels. Thus, the ABLA-R seems to be more appropriate for developmentally disabled individuals with limited verbal repertoires and lower functioning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Avaliar repertórios é uma etapa importante no planejamento de intervenções analítico-comportamentais para indivíduos com autismo e distúrbios do desenvolvimento. Medidas comportamentais preditivas da probabilidade em aprender determinados repertórios (com maior facilidade ou dificuldade) podem ser úteis na definição de objetivos e procedimentos de ensino para estas populações. O teste ABLA-R (Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities - Revised) avalia a aprendizagem de seis tarefas, denominadas níveis, que requerem aprendizagem de uma resposta motora (Nível 1), discriminação de posição (Nível 2), discriminação visual simples (Nível 3), discriminação condicional visual-visual (Nível 4), discriminação visual-visual arbitrária (Nível 5) e discriminação condicional auditivo-visual (Nível 6). Este artigo tem por objetivo caracterizar o teste ABLA-R, revisar os estudos sobre seu potencial preditivo e discutir suas implicações práticas. Os estudos revisados sugerem que o teste apresenta bom potencial preditivo de aprendizagem de tarefas que envolvem os mesmos tipos de discriminações por ele avaliados. Os resultados do ABLA-R podem ser úteis em contextos de aplicação quando profissionais ou pesquisadores necessitam selecionar comportamentos-alvo e/ou procedimentos de ensino. Entretanto, enquanto avaliação de repertórios básicos de aprendizagem, o ABLA-R apresenta importantes limitações, caracterizando-se como uma avaliação (de repertórios discriminativos) mais apropriada para indivíduos de baixo funcionamento e com repertórios verbais incipientes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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