Teaching Object-Picture Matching to Improve Concordance between Object and Picture Preferences for Individuals with Developmental Disabilities: Pilot Study.

We evaluated teaching object-picture matching to improve concordance between preference assessments using objects and pictures of the same objects. Three participants with developmental disabilities who showed high and low preferences during assessments with objects but not with pictures were taught object-picture matching tasks unrelated to the items used during preference assessments. Training was evaluated in a modified multiple-baseline design and preference assessments with objects and pictures were repeated after training each object-picture matching task. Two participants showed improved concordance after mastering two and three training tasks, respectively. The third participant did not show concordance between object and picture preference assessments after mastering two tasks and after additional training. Our findings suggested that object-picture matching might be a prerequisite for picture preference assessments.