Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Subsequent Mand Acquisition of Children with Various Levels of Verbal Repertoires

Abstract

Effects of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on the subsequent acquisition of mand operants were investigated. An attempt was made to shape novel sounds that emerged through the pairing procedure into a mand. Six children, aged two to five years, with moderate to severe language and communication delays, participated. Two conditions were used following the pairing condition: postpairing and direct reinforcement. The emergence of mands was compared across these conditions. An additional analysis was made of the relation between participants' baseline verbal repertoires and the effects of the pairing and the emergence of mands. Results indicate the possibility of stimulus control from a stimulus-stimulus pairing to mand as shown in two of the participants who had demonstrated high rates of vocal play and low to no verbal repertoire prior to this study. Target vocal sounds during postpairing and direct reinforcement condition remained at zero to low levels for participants with high verbal repertoire and little vocal play, warranting future studies on relations between the pre-existing verbal repertoire and the effectiveness of stimulus-stimulus pairing.

Progressing Toward Data Intimacy: A Review of Within‐session Data Analysis

“…Within-session data are also frequently presented when responding occurs within a single, prolonged acquisition session (e.g., Arntzen & Almas, 2002;Rodgers & Iwata, 1991;Yoon & Feliciano, 2007). Yet, the demonstration of within-session analyses seems to be more thorough in the assessment and treatment of problem behavior than in the study of the acquisition of appropriate behavior.…”

“…Within-session analyses have been shown to aid in the evaluation of skill endurance (Martens et al, 1997) and the representation of differential patterns of newly acquired behavior (Hanley et al, 2001). Within-session data are also frequently presented when responding occurs within a single, prolonged acquisition session (e.g., Arntzen & Almas, 2002;Rodgers & Iwata, 1991;Yoon & Feliciano, 2007). Yet, the demonstration of within-session analyses seems to be more thorough in the assessment and treatment of problem behavior than in the study of the acquisition of appropriate behavior.…”

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

“…Several studies have demonstrated effects of SSP on the vocalizations of typically developing children (Smith, Michael, & Sundberg, ), children with language delays (Sundberg et al, ; Yoon & Bennett, ), and children with ASD (e.g., Esch, Carr, & Grow, ). However, several other studies with participants with ASD have reported mixed outcomes (Miguel, Carr, & Michael, ; Rader et al, ; Yoon & Feliciano, ) or null effects (Carroll & Klatt, ; Esch, Carr, & Michael, ; Normand & Knoll, ; Stock, Schulze, & Mirenda, ). Collectively, the literature suggests that SSP does not reliably affect vocalizations of children with ASD, perhaps because speech sounds are not reliably established as conditioned reinforcers for children with ASD (Petursdottir, Carp, Matthies, & Esch, ).…”

Inducing Novel Vocalizations by Conditioning Speech Sounds as Reinforcers

“…A number of studies have reported positive effects on the vocalizations of children with and without ASD diagnoses (Carroll and Klatt 2008;Esch et al 2009;Lepper et al 2013;Miguel et al 2002;Miliotis et al 2012;Rader et al 2014;Sundberg et al 1996;Smith et al 1996;Stock et al 2008;Yoon and Bennett 2000;Yoon and Feliciano 2007). Some of these studies, however, have also reported negative results for one or more participants diagnosed with ASD or other disabilities (Carroll and Klatt 2008;Miguel et al 2002;Rader et al 2014;Stock et al 2008;Yoon and Feliciano 2007), and two studies with a total of four participants with ASD have completely failed to find an effect (Esch, Carr, and Michael 2005;Normand and Knoll 2006). Overall, in 13 published studies (see Table 1), stimulus-stimulus pairing has produced an effect on the vocalizations of 27 of 39 participants (69 %), including 16 out of 25 (64 %) participants with ASD diagnoses.…”

“…In addition, the clinical utility of inducing speech sounds through these procedures needs further investigation. To date, only a few studies have included demonstrations that the newly induced speech sounds can be Bcaught^and strengthened further via direct reinforcement (Esch et al 2009;Lepper and Petursdottir under review) or brought under stimulus control as functional vocalizations (Carroll and Klatt 2008;Yoon and Feliciano 2007).…”