Equivalence Class Formation in Language-Able and Language-Disabled Children

Stimulus equivalence seems to have relevance to the study of semantics and of language more generally. If so, there may be a relation between language use and the demonstration of stimulus equivalence. This was examined in three groups of children ranging in chronological age and matched on a conventional measure of mental age: normally developing preschoolers, retarded children who used speech or signs spontaneously and appropriately, and retarded children who did not. All children were taught a series of four related discriminations and were then tested to determine if classes of equivalent stimuli had formed. All of the language-able children (retarded and normal) formed equivalence classes, whereas none of the other language-disabled children did so. Although the exact nature of the relation between stimulus equivalence and language remains to be clarified, these results support the view that stimulus equivalence is a phenomenon with relevance to language.