Increasing the vocal responses of children with autism and developmental disabilities using manual sign mand training and prompt delay

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of manual sign mand training combined with prompt delay and vocal prompting on the production of vocal responses in nonvocal children with developmental disabilities. A multiple baseline design across participants verified the effectiveness of this intervention. All participants showed increases in vocal responses following the implementation of the independent variables.     

Effects of response‐contingent stimulus pairing on vocalizations of nonverbal children with autism

Research on stimulus–stimulus pairing to induce novel vocalizations in nonverbal children has typically employed response‐independent pairing (RIP) procedures to condition speech sounds as reinforcers. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a response‐contingent pairing (RCP) procedure on the vocalizations of three nonverbal boys diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. During RCP, adult‐delivered sounds that were either paired with a preferred item (target sounds) or not (nontarget sounds) were presented contingent on a button‐press response. In Experiment 1, RCP was compared with an RIP procedure, in which the timing of sound presentations was yoked to the preceding RCP session. RCP produced a greater effect on all participants' target vocalizations than RIP. Experiment 2 demonstrated the effects of differential reinforcement of the vocalizations induced in Experiment 1. The results suggest that RCP may develop vocalizations more reliably than RIP procedures.     

孤独症儿童潜在早期识别标志——发声异常及原因探析

孤独症谱系障碍(Autism Spectrum Disorder, ASD)儿童的早期识别及早期干预对其发育结果至关重要。发声是指儿童学会说话之前发出的声音。已有研究表明, 非类言语和类言语发声异常是ASD儿童2岁前的潜在识别标志。ASD儿童发声异常的理论解释主要有动机导向、神经运动导向、感知觉导向和社会反馈导向理论。未来研究可考虑探讨发声异常作为ASD儿童独特的早期识别标志的可能性, 加强哭声在ASD儿童早期筛查中的研究, 探索基于最具预测性声学参数集的自动学习分类模型, 探究内在动机与社会动机对ASD儿童类言语发声的影响和进一步探究ASD儿童类言语发声异常的神经机制。从而为ASD儿童的早期识别及早期干预提供更加客观的理论依据。     

Effects of foreign mand training on the emergence of foreign tact and listener responses for Chinese-speaking children with autism spectrum disorder

In China, there is an increasing demand for preschool children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) enrolled in general education to learn English vocabulary. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of foreign mand training in English on the acquisition of mand responses, and the emergence of tact and listener responses for three Chinese-speaking preschool children (boys; 4–5 years of age) with ASD. Echoic-to-mand training was implemented to teach mands in English. The study employed a concurrent multiple-probe design across behaviors. The results of the study indicated that the training was effective in the acquisition of mand responses. Moreover, untaught tacts and listener responses for the same vocabulary emerged without explicit training. Implications for small-group mand training in foreign language acquisition were discussed.     

An evaluation of a multi-component intervention for loud speech among children with autism spectrum disorder

Idiosyncratic patterns of speech are common among individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and can greatly affect their ability to participate successfully in various social and educational settings. We evaluated a treatment package with three children with ASD and a history of loud speech. A multiple baseline across participants design and a decibel meter application were used to evaluate whether the multi-component intervention (i.e., a rule, differential reinforcement, and in vivo feedback) would effectively reduce participants' rates of loud speech. The results showed that the intervention decreased rates of loud speech for all participants. Results are discussed in terms of (a) their extension of the literature regarding speech prosody in ASD by demonstrating an effective intervention for loud speech, (b) clinical implications, and (c) potential future research regarding this nuanced, yet crucial aspect of social communication, including appropriate methods for addressing loud speech in individuals with ASD.     

Teaching children with autism to engage in peer-directed mands using a picture exchange communication system

We evaluated differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) plus prompting to increase peer-directed mands for preferred items using a picture exchange communication system (PECS). Two nonvocal individuals with autism participated. Independent mands with a peer increased with the implementation of DRA plus prompting for both participants. In addition, peers engaged in brief social interactions following the majority of mands for leisure items. These results suggest that teaching children to use PECS with peers may be one way to increase manding and social interactions in individuals with limited or no vocal repertoire.     

The effect of brief delays to reinforcement on the acquisition of tacts in children with autism

We used discrete‐trial training to teach 3 children with autism to tact shapes of countries using 3 levels of reinforcement delay for correct responding: 0 s (immediate delivery), 6 s, and 12 s. Two of the 3 participants acquired the targets more quickly in the immediate‐delivery condition, suggesting that delays as brief as 6 s may be detrimental to learning tacts for some children.     

Increasing compliance with wearing a medical device in children with autism

Health professionals often recommend the use of medical devices to assess the health, monitor the well-being, or improve the quality of life of their patients. Children with autism may present challenges in these situations as their sensory peculiarities may increase refusals to wear such devices. To address this issue, we systematically replicated prior research by examining the effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to increase compliance with wearing a heart rate monitor in 2 children with autism. The intervention increased compliance to 100% for both participants when an edible reinforcer was delivered every 90 s. The results indicate that DRO does not require the implementation of extinction to increase compliance with wearing a medical device. More research is needed to examine whether the reinforcement schedule can be further thinned.     

Establishing a generalized repertoire of helping behavior in children with autism

The present study used a multiple baseline across participants design to assess whether 4 children with autism could learn a generalized repertoire of helping adults with different tasks through the use of a multicomponent teaching package. Different helping responses were taught in the presence of multiple exemplars of discriminative stimuli drawn from experimenter-defined categories of helping behavior (e.g., locating objects, putting away items, setting up an activity). During the training condition, video models, prompting, and reinforcement were used. The results showed that all 4 children learned to emit appropriate helping responses in the presence of discriminative stimuli from the helping categories used during training. Generalization of helping responses was observed in the presence of untrained discriminative stimuli during additional probe conditions. Additional pre- and postintervention generalization trials showed that the frequency of helping responses also increased in the presence of novel stimuli, in a novel setting, and with a novel instructor.     

Parent-implemented mand training: acquisition of framed manding in a young boy with partial hemispherectomy

This study examined the effects of parent-implemented mand training on the acquisition of framed manding in a 4-year-old boy who had undergone partial hemispherectomy. Framed manding became the predominant mand form when and only when the intervention was implemented with each preferred toy, but minimal generalization to untrained toys nevertheless occurred. A pure mand test suggested that manding was controlled by the relevant motivating operation.     

Evaluation of a telehealth parent training program in teaching self-care skills to children with autism

The present study used synchronous video conferencing to remotely deliver a behavioral skills training-based (BST) parent training program to 3 parents of children with autism in the family home. Parents were taught to implement graduated guidance to teach their children several important self-care skills. Parents did not correctly implement graduated guidance after receiving detailed written instructions only. After parents received the BST parent training package, however, all parents implemented graduated guidance with near-perfect levels of fidelity, and all children completed the targeted self-care skills with substantially higher levels of accuracy and independence. Furthermore, parents reported high levels of satisfaction with graduated guidance, the telehealth BST training package, and their children's ability to complete self-care skills.     

Teaching spontaneous requests to children with autism using a time delay procedure with multi-component toys

Children with autism were taught spontaneous requests through a time delay procedure. Unlike previous research, which usually employed food as the target stimuli to be requested, the present study used toy pieces from multi-component toys. The procedure involved presenting a child with the target stimulus, with the trainer prompting the child by immediately modeling the request response. When the response was imitated without error, prompting was delayed with the time interval gradually being increased over trials. A spontaneous or imitated response was reinforced by giving the child the requested object. As the stimulus/model interval increased, children with autism were expected to initiate the request by themselves prior to the prompt. The efficacy of the time delay procedure was assessed using a multiple baseline across subject design with three Chinese boys with autism. Results showed that the three children acquired a 100% performance within five to nine sessions of training and the skill was maintained at the one-month and three-month followups. Furthermore, the learned response transferred to various conditions when tested across setting, person, toy, and food items. These results suggest that toys, the multi-component ones in particular, served well as reinforcers for language training. Furthermore these findings confirmed the practical utility of the time delay procedure for promoting spontaneous communication skills in children with autism.