Imitation in language development: If,when, and why

In order to explore the function of imitation for first language learning, imitative and spontaneous utterances were compared in the naturalistic speech of six children in the course of their development from single-word utterances (when mean length of utterance was essentially 1.0) to the emergence of grammar (when mean length of utterance approached 2.0). The relative extent of imitation, and lexical and grammatical variation in imitative and spontaneous speech were determined. There were inter-subject differences in the extent of imitation, but each child was consistent in the tendency to imitate or not to imitate across time. For those children who imitated, there were both lexical and grammatical differences in imitative and spontaneous speech, and a developmental shift from imitative to spontaneous use of particular words and semantic-syntactic relations between words. The results are discussed as evidence of an active processing of model utterances relative to the contexts in which they occur for information for language learning.     

The development of imitation by reinforcing behavioral similarity to a model

This research demonstrated some of the conditions under which retarded children can be taught to imitate the actions of adults. Before the experiment, the subjects were without spontaneous imitative behavior, either vocal or motor. Each subject was taught, with food as reinforcement, a series of responses identical to responses demonstrated by an experimenter; i.e., each response was reinforced only if it was identical to a prior demonstration by an experimenter. Initially, intensive shaping was required to establish matching responses by the subjects. In the course of acquiring a variety of such responses, the subjects' probability of immediate imitation of each new demonstration, before direct training, greatly increased. Later in the study, certain new imitations, even though perfect, were never reinforced; yet as long as some imitative responses were reinforced, all remained at high strength. This imitativeness was then used to establish initial verbal repertoires in two subjects.     

THE EFFECTS OF BEHAVIOR SKILLS TRAINING ON CORRECT TEACHER IMPLEMENTATION OF NATURAL LANGUAGE PARADIGM TEACHING SKILLS AND CHILD BEHAVIOR

Natural Language Paradigm (NLP) is a naturalistic teaching strategy for children with autism that increases immediate and delayed imitative utterances, spontaneous utterances and new words, and production of utterances. NLP includes increasing child choice, varying stimulus items, loose shaping contingencies for communicative attempts, and providing reinforcers with a direct relationship to the response. Only one previous study investigated the effects of behavioral skills training (BST) on staff acquisition and generalization of implementation of NLP and child behavior. A BST package of instructions, modeling rehearsal and feedback, was used to train teachers to implement NLP teaching procedures with three pre‐school children with autism spectrum disorder. Training increased correct teacher performance systematically across all three teachers during NLP teaching sessions and with children for whom teachers did not directly receive training. Correct teacher performance increased appropriate child vocalizations and decreased maladaptive behavior for four of six children. BST is effective in quickly training teachers in the generalized implementation of complex NLP teaching procedures across children. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Vocal imitation between mothers and infants

The aim of the present mixed cross-sectional and longitudinal study was to observe and describe some aspects of vocal imitation in natural mother-infant interaction. Specifically, maternal imitation of infant utterances was observed in relation to the imitative modeling, mirrored equivalence, and social guided learning models of infant speech development. Nine mother-infant dyads were audio-video recorded. Infants were recruited at different ages between 6 and 11 months and followed for 3 months, providing a quasi-longitudinal series of data from 6 through 14 months of age. It was observed that maternal imitation was more frequent than infant imitation even though vocal imitation was a rare maternal response. Importantly, mothers used a range of contingent and noncontingent vocal responses in interaction with their infants. Mothers responded to three-quarters of their infant's vocalizations, including speech-like and less mature vocalization types. The infants’ phonetic repertoire expanded with age. Overall, the findings are most consistent with the social guided learning approach. Infants rarely imitated their mothers, suggests a creative self-motivated learning mechanism that requires further investigation.     

Effects of social demands on generalized imitation learning in retarded children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of social-setting characteristics in the acquisition and maintenance of generalized imitative behavior. A total of 50 imitative moderately retarded children were each assigned to 1 of 5 treatment conditions. The groups were matched with respect to each S's pretreatment imitative level. It was found that the degree of social demand to imitate differentially contributes to the occurrence of generalized imitative behavior. These findings are discussed in terms of recent explanations of the occurrence of generalized imitation learning and Zigler's position concerning the problem-solving style of retarded children.This study is based on a Master's thesis submitted by the first author to Syracuse University and supervised by the second author. The authors wish to thank Carl Petrontoni, Marshall Beckman, Sheri Saloff, Gary George, Joseph Koury, and Ellen Kasher, who served as research assistants. Special thanks are given to Willian R. Hootsy, Director of Children's Services at the Onondaga County Center for Retarded Children, for making the children available for this research. Portions of this study were prepared while the second author was on leave of absence to the Bavarian State Institute for Early Childhood Education, Munich, Germany.     

An analysis of generalized imitation

An experimenter presented English words to three intermediate-level children and reinforced accurate imitation of these words. The experimenter also presented novel Spanish words, but the imitation of these words was never experimentally reinforced. One subject quickly ceased performing non-reinforced imitative responses. The other two subjects were exposed to a series of conditions designed to facilitate discrimination. Upon observing the first subject for one session they immediately ceased imitating Spanish demonstrations. For all three subjects, when reinforcement was delivered for responses other than imitation, all imitative responses eventually ceased. When reinforcement was reintroduced for English imitations there was an immediate resumption of such responses to their previous 100% level. The occurrence of non-reinforced imitations in this and previous studies was discussed as being a function of one or combination of four variables: (1) similarity acquiring conditioned reinforcing properties, or (2) instructional, (3) coincidental, or (4) conditional stimulus generalization.     

Adult-child discourse: Developmental interaction between information processing and linguistic knowledge

In the present study, the discourse interaction between adult and child was examined in terms of the content of their utterances, and the linguistic and contextual relations between their messages, in order to investigate how children use the information from adults' input sentences to form contingent responses. The analyses described were based on longitudinal data from four children from approximately 21 to 36 months of age. Categories of child discourse, their development and their interactions with aspects of prior adult utterances form the major results of the study. Child utterances were identified as adjacent (immediately preceded by an adult utterance), or as nonadjacent (not immediately preceded by an adult utterance). Adjacent utterances were either contingent (shared the same topic and added new information relative to the topic of the prior utterance), imitative (shared the same topic but did not add new information), or noncontingent (did not share the same topic). From the beginning, the adjacent speech was greater than nonadjacent speech. Contingent speech increased over time; in particular, linguistically contingent speech (speech that expanded the verb relation of the prior adult utterance with added or replaced constituents within a clause) showed the greatest developmental increase. Linguistically contingent speech occurred more often after questions than nonquestions. The results are discussed in terms of how the differential requirements for processing information in antecedent messages is related to language learning.     

Adult discipline as a factor in childhood imitation

The present study examined changes in two children's imitative behavior as a function of the model's use of timeout and differential attention. Subjects were two children, one classified by her parents, the other classified by his teacher, as highly oppositional to adult requests or commands. The former child was treated by the parents in the home setting; the latter child was treated by the teacher in a preschool setting. Results showed that the children's oppositional behavior varied predictably with the presence and absence of adult use of time-out and differential attention. As expected, imitative behavior of both children was greater during treatment periods than during baseline periods.This research was funded in part by a Faculty Research Grant from the Graduate School, University of Tennessee, Knoxville. We would like to extend our appreciation to Nancy Williams, Andrea Warming, Ursula Botbyl, Diane Childress, Tom Hunter, and Edward Fowler who served as observers, and to Ronda Warner who worked with Ernest in the University Nursery School.     

Generalized imitative affection: Relationship to prior kinds of imitation training

Two experiments utilizing first- and second-grade Canadian children showed that generalized imitative physical affection was most facilitated by prior imitative physical contact training (as opposed to verbal contact training) when the object of the affection was either a toy teddy bear, Experiment I, or an adult human, Experiment II.Additional findings from Experiment I showed that generalized imitative physical aggression was equally facilitated by imitative physical contact training and that punishment, as well as extinction operations applied to training imitations, resulted in suppression of all generalized imitations with no differential effect of punishment on affection or aggression being noted.The lack of any persisting imitations in a control group in Experiment II, which received noncontingent reinforcement but instructional prompting for training imitations, suggested that instructional control of imitation responses was initially weak and that the contingency between reinforcement and training imitations was critical for continued occurrence of training imitations and any occurrence of generalized physical affection imitations.     

Syntagmatically oriented reactions in the early phases of speech development]

Within a longitudinal observational study of two children aged from 18 to 36 months spontaneous reactive utterances were analysed. It could be found syntagmatic reactions without topic coherence with the utterances of the previous speaker. The specialty of these utterances consists in the fact that the child, after having perceived certain words in the parental utterances, creates an association to the previously heard grammatical context. The results are discussed within the scope of problems of language acquisition in children.     

The effects of differential reinforcement on generalized imitation

The present study examines the transfer of imitative learning to other nonimitative performance conditions and compares imitative and nonimitative performance under contingencies of differential reinforcement for S⁰ behavior, differential reinforcement for nonimitative behavior, and extinction. Many authors have suggested that a child's continued imitative performance of rewarded S^D and unrewarded S^Δ behavior is a function of subtle social cues or experimental demand present in most generalized imitation procedures. The two experiments presented here support that conclusion but also provide evidence that conclusions drawn from such generalized imitation studies were generally accurate. Even though a child's trial-by-trial imitative performance appeared to be a function of procedural artifacts, the child's later performance in the role of a model indicated that a functionally interdependent generalized response class of imitative behavior had been learned while the child imitated. As such, these experiments generally supported Baer's secondary reinforcement hypothesis for imitative performance and suggest that future research employ nonimitative tasks such as reversed imitation as a measure of imitative learning.     

The development of generalized imitation within topographically determined boundaries

A multiple baseline technique was employed to examine the experimental development of an imitative repertoire within preselected topographical boundaries. Four severely retarded children, initially nonimitative, were individually trained to imitate a number of motor and vocal responses by shaping and fading procedures. Other untrained responses (probes) were demonstrated to the subjects systematically throughout the ongoing training. Training responses were divided into three topographical types: small motor, large motor, and short vocal responses. Probe responses were divided into four topographical types: small motor, large motor, short vocal, and long vocal responses. Following a multiple baseline format, sequential training of the first three types was begun at different temporal periods of the study; unreinforced imitative generalization was continually measured by the probes. Generalized imitation was observed in each subject (untrained responses were imitated even though unreinforced); but this generalization was restricted to the topographical type of imitation currently receiving training or having previously received training.     

A preliminary investigation of fixed and repetitive models during object imitation training

Empirically based guidelines for imitation training for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are limited and there is no existing evidence about what types of imitative models foster faster acquisition of imitation in children with ASD. We compared rates of acquisition for two different methods for presenting the imitative model (i.e., repetitive, fixed) in simple (Experiment 1) and conditional (Experiment 2) discrimination arrangements. The results suggest that some children with ASD may acquire imitation more rapidly when repetitive models, rather than fixed models are used to present the target skill. In Experiment 3, we investigated the features of object imitation models that might influence acquisition. The results of Experiment 3 suggest that the dynamic nature of repetitive models might be responsible for the differential acquisition we observed in the earlier two Experiments. Additionally, the presence of an outcome (e.g., stacked blocks) during training does not enhance acquisition.     

Spontaneous imitation in the social interactions of young people with developmental delay and their adult carers

This paper examines the presence of spontaneous imitation within the social interactions of young people with developmental delay and their adult carers. There have been only a handful of observational studies examining imitation in this population, despite the relevance of such work to contemporary theoretical debates about imitation and the potential that imitation holds as an intervention for promoting communicative skills. The play of eight young people and 13 adult carers over 10 sessions at an after‐school club was videotaped and analysed for the presence and impact of spontaneous imitative bouts. Results showed that, in the majority of cases, it was adults who initiated imitative bouts and that the young people generally did not reciprocate such acts. However, even such brief instances of adult imitation were sufficient to increase the children's subsequent smiles and speech vocalizations, as well as the adults' own use of smiling, eye contact, and speech vocalizations. These findings confirm that these young people are sensitive to imitation. The implications for designing interventions that promote communicative exchanges in young people with developmental delay are discussed. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of enactment upon sentence imitation in preschool children

Preschool children imitated two matched lists of sentences varying in length, in syntactic complexity, and in semantic complexity. Sentences on one list were acted out with toys prior to imitating them. For 3-year-olds, enactment increased retention of all sentential variables: number of words, number of frames, number of propositions, and syntax. For children younger than 3 years, enactment increased only the number of words retained, while for children older than 4 years, enactment had a minimal effect on all sentential variables. In a second experiment, prior enactment had long-term effects on the degree to which children's spontaneous stories about the toys resembled the previous sentences that they had been given to imitate. Long-term effects, however, did not extend to retention of syntax. Enactment appears to increase both young children's interest in a sentence imitation task and the amount of semantic encoding in which they engage. Its effect, however, is mediated by the degree of mastery of relevant linguistic rules.Some of these data were presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Detroit, April 1983. The authors would like to thank Lorraine Chiasson, Judith Codd, and Susan Saba for their assistance with the data analysis.     

Neonatal imitation of tongue protrusion and mouth opening: Methodological aspects and evidence of early individual differences

The present work examines imitation of mouth opening and tongue protrusion in 32 full-term infants at three different occasions: When the infants are two to three days, three weeks, and three months old. The analysis focuses (1) on individual differences in imitative behaviour and (2) on how to operationalize the infants' responses. The overall group analysis revealed that imitation of tongue protrusion was statistically significant for both two- to three-day-old and three-week-old infants but not when the children had become three months old. No statistically significant effect was observed for imitation of mouth opening. Two different imitation indexes were constructed in order to assess individual differences in early imitative behaviour. Results show that short-term stability in imitative tendencies exists between the first and second observation. The results further reveal that methodological factors must be seriously considered when studying neonatal imitation: the overall imitation found for tongue protrusion is demonstrated to be dependent on how the infants' responses are coded.     

The ontogeny of cumulative culture: Individual toddlers vary in faithful imitation and goal emulation

The success of human culture depends on early emerging mechanisms of social learning, which include the ability to acquire opaque cultural knowledge through faithful imitation, as well as the ability to advance culture through flexible discovery of new means to goal attainment. This study explores whether this mixture of faithful imitation and goal emulation is based in part on individual differences which emerge early in ontogeny. Experimental measurements and parental reports were collected for a group of 2‐year‐old children (N = 48, age = 23–32 months) on their imitative behavior as well as other aspects of cognitive and social development. Results revealed individual differences in children's imitative behavior across trials and tasks which were best characterized by a model that included two behavioral routines; one corresponding to faithful imitation, and one to goal emulation. Moreover, individual differences in faithful imitation and goal emulation were correlated with individual differences in theory of mind, prosocial behavior, and temperament. These findings were discussed in terms of their implications for understanding the mechanisms of social learning, ontogeny of cumulative culture, and the benefit of analyzing individual differences for developmental experiments.     

Use of repetition to facilitate spontaneous language acquisition

The role of repetition as a facilitator of spontaneous language acquisition was examined in a 12-month longitudinal study of three children: John, Mindy, and Ashley. Imitation was first defined in a traditional fashion as the exact repetition of a model utterance, within five utterances, without changing the model except to reduce it. During the single-word utterance period, John entered words into his vocabulary by imitating them and then using them spontaneously, while the two girls did not. He also imitated longer utterances than he produced spontaneously while the two girls did not. At the same time, John showed the most rapid language acquisition of the three children. John did not use imitation, as defined, to enter new syntactic-semantic relations into his speech during the two-word stage. However, when the definition of imitation was broadened to include other kinds of repetitions such as repetitions with expansion, either of the child's own productions or of those of others, it was found that repetitions played a significant role in the acquisition of new vocabulary and new syntactic-semantic relations in two-word utterances.This article is based, in part, on a Ph.D. dissertation submitted to the Department of Psychology, University of Denver, in 1976. Portions of the article were presented at the Wisconsin Education Research Association, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, December 1–2, 1977. The research was undertaken while the author was an NIMH predoctoral fellow, 5F01 MH55918-02 MTHL, and was also supported by a Grant Foundation grant for graduate student research to Dr. Marshall Haith and a Spencer Foundation grant to Dr. Kurt Fischer.     

Comparison of nonretarded and mentally retarded children on tasks involving direct and rule-governed imitation.

The influence of intellectual level and social reinforcement on imitation learning was examined. Tasks involving direct and rule-governed imitation of a mode were presented to 20 mentally retarded and 20 nonretarded children. The children within each group were randomly assigned to either an affective ("good-fine") or an informative ("correct-right") social reinforcement condition. Reinforcement, administered on a fixed ration (FR4) schedule, was contingent on the child's imitative behavior. A multivariate analysis of variance showed that both the Population X Reinforcement Type interaction and the Reinforcement main effect were significant. Univariate follow-up tests showed that only rule-governed imitation contributed significantly to the multivariate effects. Analysis of simple effects indicated that retarded children performed optimally under affective reinforcement, while the nonretarded children performed highest under informative reinforcement.