Let’s stop mentioning errorless learning when comparing different behavioral treatments for children with autism. The discussion, as currently framed, isn’t really helpful.

In the late 90’s, the term “errorless learning” started to appear in discussions of behavioral treatment for children with autism. Unfortunately, rather than contributing to the dialogue on effective treatment, the use of the term simply caused confusion. Upon closer scrutiny, it turns out errorless learning has been a part of behavioral treatment for children with autism for a long time. The only thing new in the 90’s was calling it “errorless learning.”

Question 6:
What exactly is errorless learning?

My Answer:
Errorless learning does not refer to one procedure, but rather to a set of procedures. The first article in JABA to mention errorless learning appears in 1981 and mentions the earlier work of Terrace in 1966. “Errorless learning is a procedure in which discriminative stimuli are gradually faded in and/or faded out so that stimulus control is established with a negligible amount of errors.” (Weeks, M. & Gaylord-Ross, R., 1981)* By 1984, errorless learning was also being applied to delayed prompting (Touchette, P. E. & Howard, J. S., 1984). And, in 2007, errorless learning was used to designate a most to least prompting procedure. (Jared Jerome, Eric P. Frantino, & Peter Sturmey, 2007).

*All research examples are taken from JABA, whose articles are available for free on the Internet.
http://seab.envmed.rochester.edu/jaba/jabaindx.asp?Searchset=1&SearchString=
Thus, errorless learning might best be defined as: the set of prompting procedures that result in near-zero amounts of errors.

Question 7:
How is the term “errorless learning” misused?

My Answer:
First, some people who follow a Verbal Behavior approach will say, “we use errorless learning” as if it is one particular procedure, the procedure they use (often a time delay prompt). As I have noted, errorless learning is a set of procedures. Therefore, even if one particular prompting procedure (e.g., time delay) isn’t used frequently by another behavioral treatment program, that program may still use other prompting procedures (e.g., most to least prompting) which are also errorless learning procedures.

Second, some people will emphasize “errorless learning” when they are not really contributing to the discussion of errorless learning, per se. For example, the 2007 JABA article by Jared Jerome, Eric P. Frantino, & Peter Sturmey is entitled, “The effects of errorless learning and backward chaining on the acquisition of internet skills in adults with developmental disabilities.” The term “errorless learning” last appeared in the title of a JABA article in 1984. However, the 2007 article goes on to focus on one particular errorless learning procedure: most-to-least intrusive prompting rather than errorless learning in general. The study does not attempt to further our understanding of errorless learning, nor does it prove (or attempt to prove) anything that would be true for all errorless learning procedures. Thus, the article would better be entitled “The effects of an errorless learning procedure and backward chaining…” or better yet, simply “The effects of most-to-least intrusive prompting and backward chaining on the acquisition…”

Likewise, the current fad for using the term errorless learning to differentiate behavioral approaches for children with autism draws attention away from the real issue, considering if a specific prompting procedure is more effective, less effective, or similar to other prompting procedures when teaching a particular type of child or a particular type of skill.

Thus, I would urge people to stop saying, “we use errorless learning” to describe differences in behavioral treatment programs. Not only is the statement an example of poor behavioral language, it’s also like mentioning “I drink milk from cows.” Errorless learning procedures aren’t the exception in behavioral treatment; they’re the rule.