USING TIME DELAY TO PROMOTE SPONTANEOUS SPEECH IN AN AUTISTIC CHILD

One of the frequently observed deficits in autistic children is their lack of spontaneous speech. We used a multiple baseline across behaviors to investigate the effectiveness of a time delay procedure for inducing spontaneous speech in a 10-year-old male autistic child during play. We first taught the child to imitate the experimenter's verbal prompts that described the child's motor response. Once the child reached criteria on imitation, we implemented baseline wherein an immediate verbal prompt for speech was provided after each of the child's motor responses. Intervention consisted of a gradual delay in the presentation of the verbal prompts. The time delay effectively increased the child's spontaneous speech on trained items; some generalization to untrained items also occurred, but only within the same behavioral class of car play. Generalization was also observed across settings. Spontaneous speech remained at high levels during the 4-month maintenance for the behavior of car play but decreased for a second behavior. Decreases in the child's response latencies suggest that spontaneous speech may be an anticipatory verbal response.     

INCREASING AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S DAILY SPONTANEOUS SPEECH

We investigated the effectiveness of teaching parents of 3 autistic boys to use a time delay procedure to increase their children's appropriate spontaneous speech in several naturally occurring daily settings (e.g., saying “good morning” in the morning). Generalization across settings and within settings across persons and locations was assessed. Variation in the children's spontaneous speech was also assessed. In addition procedural errors in the parents' use of time delay were calculated. Results indicated that all children increased their daily spontaneous speech and generalized their speech to other locations and persons.     

ATTENTION TRAINING: THE USE OF OVERCORRECTION AVOIDANCE TO INCREASE THE EYE CONTACT OF AUTISTIC AND RETARDED CHILDREN

A crucial first step in teaching and training the retarded and autistic is to develop and maintain eye contact with the therapist. Functional movement training (an overcorrection procedure) plus edibles and praise were compared with edibles and praise alone as a method of developing eye contact in three such children. In both conditions, the child was given food and praise when eye contact occurred within 5 sec of the therapist's verbal prompt: “Look at me.” Functional movement training avoidance plus edibles and praise produced about 90% attention for the three children, while edibles and praise alone were less effective (eye contact never exceeded 55%). Functional movement training avoidance combined with edibles and praise appears to be an effective method of teaching eye contact and possibly other forms of instruction-following to behaviorally disordered children who are not always responsive to positive consequences.     

ACQUISITION OF EXPRESSIVE SIGNING BY AUTISTIC CHILDREN: AN EVALUATION OF THE RELATIVE EFFECTS OF SIMULTANEOUS COMMUNICATION AND SIGN-ALONE TRAINING

Two methods of training autistic children to use manual signs were compared. Two children, one mute and one capable of some verbal imitation, were taught to use signs as expressive labels for pictures of objects. Using an alternating treatments design, speed of sign acquisition was compared across two training conditions in which signs were presented either accompanied by, or without, the corresponding verbal label. In both conditions, the training procedure incorporated reinforcement, modeling, prompting, fading, and stimulus rotation. The efficacy of training in both treatment conditions was demonstrated by the use of a multiple baseline control across signs, but no clear differences in acquisition speed across conditions were apparent. Posttests conducted to assess stimulus control of signing, and learning of verbal labels when these were present in training, showed that the behavior of the imitative, but not the mute, child was controlled by the verbal stimuli. The implications of the results both for understanding deficits characteristic of autistic children and for developing appropriate language training procedures are discussed.     

THE APPLICATION OF NATURALISTIC CONVERSATION TRAINING TO SPEECH PRODUCTION IN CHILDREN WITH SPEECH DISABILITIES

The purpose of this experiment was to test the effectiveness of including speech production into naturalistic conversation training for 2 children with speech production disabilities. A multiple baseline design across behaviors (target phonemes) and across subjects (for the same phoneme) indicated that naturalistic conversation training resulted in improved spontaneous speech production. The implications of these findings are discussed relative to existing models of speech production training and other aspects of communication disorders.     

AN ALTERNATING TREATMENT COMPARISON OF ORAL AND TOTAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING PROGRAMS WITH ECHOLALIC AUTISTIC CHILDREN

An alternating treatment comparison was conducted of the relative effectiveness of oral and total communication training models for teaching expressive labeling skills to three echolalic autistic children. The results of this comparison demonstrated that total communication proved to be the most successful approach with each of the subjects. In addition, the replication of these findings both within and across subjects suggest that total communication may be, in general, the most effective of these two training models for teaching basic vocal language skills to echolalic children. A number of hypotheses are presented that may provide a basis for the demonstrated effect.     

THE FACILITATIVE EFFECTS OF INCIDENTAL TEACHING ON PREPOSITION USE BY AUTISTIC CHILDREN

In a comparison of incidental teaching and traditional training procedures, three language-delayed autistic children were taught expressive use of prepositions to describe the location of preferred edibles and toys. Traditional highly structured training and incidental teaching procedures were used in a classroom setting, and generalization was assessed during free-play sessions. Results clearly indicate that incidental teaching promoted greater generalization and more spontaneous use of prepositions. These findings have important implications for language programming and teacher training, suggesting that incidental teaching should be included as a standard component of language development curricula for autistic and other developmentally delayed children.     

ASSESSING AND TRAINING TEACHERS IN THE GENERAUZED USE OF BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION WITH AUTISTIC CHILDREN1

This study investigated the feasibility of developing reliable, valid criteria for measuring and training the skills necessary to teach autistic children. The behaviors of 11 teachers and 12 autistic children were recorded in a series of different teaching situations. Teacher-training was initiated at different times for different teachers. The results showed: (1) it was possible to assess empirically whether a teacher was correctly using defined behavior-modification techniques; (2) generally, for any given session, systematic improvement in the child's behavior did not occur unless the teacher working in that session had been trained to use the techniques to a high criterion; (3) all 11 teachers were rapidly trained to use these techniques; and (4) the teachers learned generalized skills effective with a variety of children and target behaviors.     

TRAINING MILDLY HANDICAPPED PEERS TO FACILITATE CHANGES IN THE SOCIAL INTERACTION SKILLS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN

We evaluated the effects of a peer-training strategy, consisting of direct prompting and modeling, on the occurrence and duration of interactions between autistic students and nonautistic peer-trainers. Data were obtained in both training and generalization settings. The results of a multiple-baseline design across students demonstrated that: (a) the direct prompting procedure produced immediate and substantial increases in the occurrences and durations of positive social interactions between the peer-trainers and autistic students; (b) these increases were maintained across time at levels above baseline during subsequent free-play probes; (c) these findings were judged by teachers to be socially valid; (d) untrained peers increased their interactions with the autistic students in three of the four groups; (e) generalization of behavior change across settings occurred only after specific programming; and (f) interactions between untrained peers and peer-trainers decreased following training. Variables that may account for the results and the implications of these findings for peer-mediated interventions are discussed.     

PARENT REINFORCEMENT FOR CHILD ACHIEVEMENT: THE USE OF A LOTTERY TO MAXIMIZE PARENT TRAINING EFFECTS

This study describes and evaluates a reinforcement program in which parents earned lottery tickets and won prizes for the progress made by their handicapped children during home-based intervention. An ABAB reversal design replicated across three families was used to assess the effects of the lottery on the children's mastery of language skills. Results showed that the reinforcement of the parents for training accomplishments, as indexed by their children's achievements, produced clinically significant increases in the children's progress when compared with the children's progress under the routine supportive practices of the baseline condition. The implications of the findings for parent training programs in general are discussed.     

ACQUISITION OF SIGN LANGUAGE BY AUTISTIC CHILDREN II: SPONTANEITY AND GENERALIZATION EFFECTS

Autistic children typically do not use their language repertoire in order to communicate. Six autistic children who exhibited poor communication skills were trained to use their sign repertoire to make spontaneous requests of adults. Training consisted of imitative prompting, fading, and differential reinforcement, and included aspects of incidental teaching. The children displayed an increase in the rate and variety of spontaneous sign requests (Experiment 1). Generalization of spontaneity across adults (Experiments 1 and 2) and settings (Experiment 2) was also observed. We suggest that spontaneity may be facilitated when language is brought under the control of broadly defined stimuli such as adult attention rather than narrowly defined stimuli such as the presence of specific objects or verbal prompting in the form of questions. Finally, response generalization was observed as well (Experiment 1). Specifically, as spontaneity increased, self-stimulatory behavior decreased. This result may be accounted for in terms of reinforcer competition, reinforcer consistency, or discriminative stimulus effects.     

ACQUISITION OF SIGN LANGUAGE BY AUTISTIC CHILDREN. I: EXPRESSIVE LABELLING

There has been growing interest in teaching sign language to autistic children who have failed to develop speech. However, controlled experimentation in this area is nonexistent. In the present study, four nonverbal autistic children were taught expressive sign labels for common objects, using a training procedure that consisted of prompting, fading, and stimulus rotation. The efficacy of the procedure was demonstrated in a multiple-baseline design across objects. The results were reliable, replicable across children, and generalizable across therapists. A stimulus control analysis demonstrated that, for three of the children, correct signing was controlled solely by the visual cues associated with the presentation of a given object and was independent of the auditory cues related to the same object. These latter results are discussed with respect to the known perceptual and linguistic deficits of autistic children.     

TEACHERS' GENERALIZED USE OF DELAY AS A STIMULUS CONTROL PROCEDURE TO INCREASE LANGUAGE USE IN HANDICAPPED CHILDREN

In Experiment 1, classroom teachers were taught to delay their offers of help in naturally occurring situations, and thereby to provide additional opportunities for language use by six moderately retarded language-delayed children. The teachers introduced this delay technique in a multiple-baseline design across the six children. As delays were used, child verbal initiations increased. Follow-up assessment showed that teachers were maintaining greater than baseline levels of the delay technique after 10 weeks. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1, and included a more thorough maintenance assessment, while focusing on teachers' generalization of the delay technique. Teachers were found to generalize their use of delay to 56% of their monitored untaught opportunities. The two experiments show that (a) the delay technique is quick to teach and simple to implement, (b) delays do provide opportunities for children to initiate, (c) teachers can generalize their use of delay to novel self-selected situations, and (d) teachers can maintain their use of delays over time.     

TRAINING PARENTS IN BEHAVIORAL SELF-MANAGEMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF GENERALIZATION AND MAINTENANCE

This study examined the generalization and maintenance effects of three phases of parent training (Instructions plus Feedback and two Self-management Training phases) on levels of disruptive child behavior and the accuracy with which parents implemented programs. Data were collected from five families in three main settings: the initial training setting (the home), a variety of generalization settings in the community, and the family breakfast. A multiple baseline across subjects design was used. Instructions plus Feedback comprised instructing parents to use a range of behavior management procedures and provided home-based differential feedback concerning accuracy of program implementation. Self-management Training phases involved training parents in goal setting, self-monitoring, and planning skills, specific to their performance of appropriate parenting skills in generalization settings. Results indicated that the Instructions plus Feedback phase was sufficient to produce reduced levels of problem behavior at home and high levels of accurate implementation, but generalization effects out of home were equivocal. Self-management maintained reduced levels of problem behavior at home but, in addition, resulted in generalization effects in community settings for both children and parents. Maintenance probes 3 months following the program revealed the effects had been maintained.     

TIME DELAY: A TECHNIQUE TO INCREASE LANGUAGE USE AND FACILITATE GENERALIZATION IN RETARDED CHILDREN

Institutional breakfast-serving procedures were manipulated to assess what effect changes in that aspect of the environment would have on requests for food. During baseline, six severely retarded children were required to pick up their food trays and return to their seats. The first manipulation, delaying the giving of the food tray for 15 seconds, served as a cue to evoke meal requests by three of the six children. Two of the remaining three required a model of an appropriate meal request (i.e., “Tray, please.”) at the end of the 15-second delay before they began requesting their meals. To evoke meal requests from the sixth child, an intensive training procedure, consisting of massed trials of delay and modeling, was required. Three different probes were administered to assess generalization across the people serving the meals, across mealtimes, and across both people and mealtimes. Typically, generalized responding in these new situations could be prompted by use of the 15-second delay procedure. Functional aspects of the delay procedure and its potential usefulness for evoking speech and facilitating generalization are discussed.     

EVALUATION OF A PARENT-TRAINING MANUAL FOR REDUCING CHILDREN'S FEAR OF THE DARK

We evaluated the effectiveness of a manual to teach parents how to help their children overcome fear of the dark. The primary components of the package included desensitization, reinforcement, and verbal self-control statements. Six fearful children ages 3–11 and their parents participated. A multiple-baseline design across three pairs of matched subjects was used. Outcome measures consisted of the level of nighttime illumination voluntarily set by the child on a rheostat installed in the bedroom and the child's subjective rating of his or her fear level during the night. The data indicated that all children were sleeping all night with the rheostat set at criterion level or lower within 2 weeks after initiation of treatment, without any report of fear. Follow-up measures at 3, 6, and 12 months showed that all children maintained or improved on the reduced fear behaviors achieved during the treatment.     

THE LIMITS AND MOTIVATING POTENTIAL OF SENSORY STIMULI AS REINFORCERS FOR AUTISTIC CHILDREN

This study investigated the reinforcing properties, limits, and motivating potentials of sensory stimuli with autistic children. In the first phase of the study, four intellectually retarded autistic children were exposed to three different types of sensory stimulation (vibration, music, and strobe light) as well as edible and social reinforcers for ten-second intervals contingent upon six simple bar pressing responses. In the second phase, the same events were used as reinforcers for correct responses in learning object labels. The results indicated that: (a) sensory stimuli can be used effectively as reinforcers to maintain high, durable rates of responding in a simple pressing task; (b) ranked preferences for sensory stimuli revealed a unique configuration of responding for each child; and (c) sensory stimuli have motivating potentials comparable to those of the traditional food and social reinforcers even when training receptive language tasks.     

THE GENERALIZATION EFFECTS OF PARENT TRAINING ACROSS STIMULUS SETTINGS

Five parents of nonverbal children were trained in two home settings to modify antecedents and consequences to their children's vocalizations. Generalization effects of the parent training on both the parent's and children's behaviors under different stimulus conditions were investigated using multiple-baseline designs. Increases in parent prompting and reinforcing their children's vocalizations generalized only minimally to a new setting in the home where parent training had not occurred. Child increases in vocalizations produced by the parents in the training settings did generalize to this new setting in the home. There was minimal generalization of child vocalizations to a free-play setting at school. In a formal speech session conducted by a behavior specialist at school, only one child showed definite increases in acquisition rate as a function of the parents starting to train the sound at home.     

A PROGRAM FOR INCREASING MANUAL SIGNING BY AUTISTIC AND PROFOUNDLY RETARDED YOUTH WITHIN THE DAILY ENVIRONMENT

A program was implemented to increase the manual signing of five profoundly retarded and four autistic youth within their daily environment. Each participant was nonvocal or minimally vocal. The program was based on modified incidental teaching strategies and was implemented by direct care personnel under supervision in an institutional setting. Specific components included rearranging the physical environment to prompt signing, altering routine staff-resident interactions to prompt, manually guide and/or reinforce signing; and conducting mini-training sessions. Additionally, staff modeled signs intermittently throughout the day. The program was sequentially implemented during two staff work shifts on each of two resident living modules. Observations conducted at four separate time periods during the day indicated that significant increases in signing occurred for all participating youth and that the increases generally maintained during follow-up checks at 5 and 17 weeks. Differential effects of the increased signing on frequency of vocalizations were noted across residents. A staff acceptability survey indicated favorable staff reports on the usefulness of signing to communicate with the youth. Results are discussed regarding the significance of manual signing for seriously developmentally disabled persons and the importance of ensuring that signing skills are used in the daily environment and not exclusively in formal training sessions. Also, areas for continued research are noted in terms of more refined analyses of client skills and subsequent progress in manual communication programs.     

儿童绘画与语言关系的发展研究综述

儿童绘画与儿童语言的关系,是儿童绘画心理及符号认知发展研究中的重点和难点问题。文章在简要回顾儿童绘画心理相关研究的基础之上,从绘画与语言都是符号、二者在发生和发展过程中的相似性以及二者心理发展阶段的一致性等方面介绍了儿童绘画与语言相互关系的研究。这些研究的结果表明,不同符号系统之间联系的焦点在于意义,意义是沟通两个符号系统的纽带。儿童绘画与语言的关系随着儿童的发展而变化。文章还分析了这些研究中存在的不足并提出了今后研究的思路。