Emergent Reading of Japanese Hiragana via Stimulus Equivalence: A Preliminary Approach

Abstract This study evaluated an experimental procedure for establishing an emergent reading repertoire of Japanese Hiragana (a nonalphabetic script) using the stimulus equivalence paradigm within a single-subject descriptive design. Three native Portuguese speakers were exposed to a matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure to establish conditional discriminations between dictated syllables (A), Hiragana characters (B), and their corresponding Romanized representations (C). The mastery criterion for all training phases was 100% accuracy in a single block of 10 trials. Following AB and AC training, participants were tested for the emergence of BC and CB relations. All participants reached over 97% accuracy in the emergent relations, indicating the formation of equivalence classes. Two participants successfully read between 85% and 100% of the Hiragana characters without direct reinforcement (emergent reading). These preliminary results support the potential of the “teaching economy” in relational models and suggest that auditory-visual equivalence protocols may be a viable strategy for promoting emergent reading of nonalphabetic scripts.