Further Evaluation of Methods to Remediate the Picture‐Text Problem

ABSTRACT The simultaneous presentation of pictures and text, characteristic of children's picture books, can hinder the development of textual responding in children exhibiting reading deficits. Recent research from our lab found that the arrangement of compound stimulus prompts during picture books resulted in textual control for six participants exhibiting reading deficits and required fewer instructional sessions to reach mastery relative to a typical picture book (i.e., picture prompt) condition for four of the six participants. Although promising, the efficacy of the typical picture book condition was unexpected and may have resulted from certain procedures such as the simultaneous presentation of targets during probes and the assignment of conditions to unique picture books. The current study addressed these limitations by including probes of individual targets and the presentation of both conditions in the same book. The current study found that the compound stimulus prompting condition was effective for all five participants exhibiting reading deficits and the picture prompt condition was effective for three participants. Additional research is needed to further delineate the conditions that can facilitate attending to print and the development of textual control during picture‐book reading experiences.