Below is a general skill sequence for helping learners match colors.
One foundational skill area that Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBAs) often focus on with their learners is the identification and understanding of colors. The instructional sequence usually begins with color matching, a task that serves as a building block for more complex cognitive activities. Using discreet trial training, tangible manipulatives, or digital resources, the learner is trained to match colors accurately. Mastery in color matching lays the groundwork for the next levels of learning, which involve receptively identifying colors when named and expressively labeling them. However, it's crucial to note that certain visual impairments like color blindness could be a barrier to mastering this skill area. Before diving into color-based activities, the learner should already exhibit proficiency in related prerequisite skills such as matching objects, scanning a field of items effectively, and following gestures or cues, ensuring a smoother and more effective learning experience.
How this skill area relates to your assessments!
This skill area aligns with various assessments and their respective domains, with milestone and domain codes provided for reference. Additionally, DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Autism are included to help clinicians identify how this skill area potentially supports medical necessity in relation to the diagnosis.
VB-MAPP (Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program)
Visual Perception/Match to Sample, VP-MTS 6-M, Matches identical objects or pictures in a messy array of 6 for 25 items.
Visual Perception/Match to Sample, VP-MTS 7-M, Sorts similar colors and shapes for 10 different colors or shapes given models (e.g., given red, blue, and green bowls and a pile of red, blue, and green bears the child sorts the items by color)
AFLS (Assessment of Functional Living Skills)
Dressing, DR28, Matches clothing styles and colors
A1, Deficits in social-emotional reciprocity, ranging, for example, from abnormal social approach and failure of normal back-and-forth conversation; to reduced sharing of interests, emotions, or affect; to failure to initiate or respond to social interactions.
CDC’s Developmental Milestones
30 months, Cognitive Milestones, Shows simple problem-solving skills, like standing on a small stool to reach something
30 months, Cognitive Milestones, Shows he knows at least one color, like pointing to a red crayon when you ask, “Which one is red?”
Treatment Plan Goal Ideas
This is a list of treatment plan goals. These are different from the goals you will find in the skill sequence below. Your treatment plan goals encompass any number of goals from the skill sequence. Sometime they will include multiple goals from the sequence (”Learner will label 5 toys”) and sometimes the treatment plan goal will be simply consist of a really important goal from the skill sequence (”Will label caregiver”). An analogy I like to use goes as follows: Each skill sequence goal (commonly known as a “target”) represent each stair in a flight of stairs. The treatment plan goal is the flight itself.
Treatment plan goal ideas for this particular skill area are as follows:
Learner will match the color black and the color white in an array of 12 color cards.
Learner will match 5 common colors in an array of 12 color cards.
Learner will match 10 common colors in an array of 12 color cards.
Component Skills
Your learner may need to be fluent in these component skills first before introducing this goal/skill area. Component skills for this skill sequence may include skill areas that are fundamental to other areas. Fluency in the skill areas listed below may increase the likelihood that your learner will succeed in this skill sequence and those afterward.
Below is a possible skill sequence for working on increasing your learner’s ability to follow instructions and match common colors. Note that every learner is different and that you likely will need to tweak and vary some programming to their needs. Click the triangle icon to view the full description for each skill in the sequence/area.
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#1 Matches Black (Ao12)
How to Run
Present an array of 12 color cards with one of them being a color card for the color black.
Gain the attention and motivation of the learner.
Give them an identical black card and ask them to match. “Match black!”.
Learner should put the picture next to/on its match.
Reinforce accordingly.
Additional Notes
Ensure that therapist is not engaging in prompting that they might not be aware of.
Target several matching targets at once to ensure that the learner doesn’t simply memorize one pair and try to match that pair at every opportunity.
Materials
Two identical black cards and 11 other color cards.
Working on these skills at the same time could help with goal mastery. Maybe your learner has mastered these skills already. Perhaps they are already listed as component skills above. That’s okay! Targeting other learning channels might help your learner.
These are the possible next steps for learners who have mastered, or are mastering, the skills listed above. Note that new skill areas may require fluency in other component skills not listed above. Also, you can introduce composite skill sequences prematurely to keep your learner progressing, as generativity may occur earlier than expected.
Follow the link below to better understand component-composite analysis.
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Research and Resources
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Disclaimer
Consistent with ethical obligations outlined by the Behavior Analysis Certification Board (BACB), users acknowledge that goal selection/direction is the responsibility of the BCBA. Users understand that goals should be tailored to the learner while ultimately involving the input of clients/stakeholders. Users understand their ethical obligations to the client/stakeholder concerning the selection, implementation, design, and minimization of risk regarding behavior change interventions as outlined in BACB Code. As such, this skill sequence serves as a general framework for generating ideas around this particular skill area and not as an assessment or curriculum.
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Intro to Scanning 
Intro to Matching (Visual Perception) 
Following Gestures
Matches Common Items in 2D Array 1.0 (Identical)
Intro to Sorting
Matches Basic Shapes in 2D Array (Identical)
Receptively IDs Colors in 2D Array