The Assessment of Basic Learning Abilities (ABLA) is a tabletop-based protocol employing manipulables that is used to gauge whether individuals with severe developmental disabilities can learn to perform a series of discrimination tasks of varying levels of difficulty. Empirical research suggests that the ABLA is useful in terms of predicting performance in several important domains, including educational and vocational activities and formation of equivalence classes and language. Despite its predictive utility, however, the technical description of the tasks involved in the procedure itself is one aspect of the ABLA research that is less than satisfactory. Precision in the use of terminology is critically important and a hallmark of behavior-analytic psychology. These authors argue that the conventional labels used for levels of the ABLA are inaccurate and therefore potentially misleading, and this leads to difficulties in interpreting applied research on the ABLA from the perspective of basic research on stimulus control and in extending the results of research on the ABLA to other applications. (Contains 1 table.)