A Review of Applied Research on Pairing Procedures to Facilitate Emergent Language

The generative nature of language development has been noted in both cognitive and behavioral psychology. Within behavior analysis, several procedures have been utilized to investigate the emergence of untrained language in both typical and neurotypical populations. These procedures often require an overt learner response (e.g., matching-to-sample). Stimulus pairing procedures pair stimuli together contiguously to form relations and do not require an overt learner response. The stimulus pairing procedure was originally described by Leader et al. (1996) and since then different terms have been used to describe it application (e.g., “respondent-type training,” “stimulus pairing observation procedure,” “stimulus pairing procedure,” “sequential stimulus pairing”). The purpose of the present paper is to describe the procedure, review the applied research on the use of pairing procedures to facilitate emergent language, identify similarities and differences among variants of the procedure, and synthesize this information to better inform researchers and practitioners. Directions for future research on this topic are also discussed.