Development of discrimination abilities and stimulus equivalence sets in preschool children

The purpose of this research was to determine the conditions under which rapid mastery of a stimulus equivalence conditional discrimination occurs; if mastery would occur during Piaget's Preoperational Period of intelligence; and if assessment performance would predict performance on a more symbolic stimulus equivalence learning task. Thirty-two preschool children were tested with the Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities: A Developmental Test (ABLA) and a stimulus equivalence test in the ABLA format. They then received training in a similar stimulus equivalence task.;Of the 32 children, 18 demonstrated acquisition of both stimulus equivalence sets and 6 demonstrated acquisition of only the ABLA stimulus equivalence set. Assessment in the ABLA format appears to be a quick and valid measure of stimulus equivalence acquisition. Performance during assessment predicted performance during extended training for 81% of the children.;The ability to generate stimulus equivalence sets was demonstrated by children who varied in age from 3 to 6 years. The mean age for acquisition of both stimulus equivalence sets was 63.39 months and for acquisition of the ABLA set only was 55.83 months.