Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing of Vocalizations: A Systematic Replication

Abstract

The current study replicated an enhanced stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) procedure used by Esch et al. (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 42: 42-225, 2009) for increasing vocalizations in children with autism. The enhanced SSP procedure consisted of pairing target vocalizations with high-preference items, interspersed target and nontarget trials, an observing response, and the presentation of the vocalizations in "motherese" speech. Results showed substantial increases in target vocalizations above baseline levels and above nontarget vocalizations for two of three participants.

Inducing Novel Vocalizations by Conditioning Speech Sounds as Reinforcers

“…Likewise, the density of stimulus presentations (i.e., the length of the intertrial interval) has varied across studies. In some studies (Esch et al 2009;Miliotis et al 2012;Rader et al 2014), the therapist has presented all speech sounds with exaggerated prosody (i.e., Bmotherese^). By contrast, Sundberg et al (1996) reported varying pitch and intonation across stimulus presentations, and Stock, Schulze, and Mirenda (2008) presented speech sounds in Ba monotone fashion with no facial expression, emotional affect, or voice inflection^(p. 127).…”

“…Some studies have used edible reinforcers exclusively (e.g., Miguel et al 2002), others have used both edible and nonedible tangible reinforcers (e.g., Esch et al 2009), and yet, others have included social reinforcers, such as tickles and praise (e.g., Sundberg et al 1996). A single highly preferred item has been used for all pairings with speech sounds in some studies (Lepper, Petursdottir, and Esch 2013), whereas in others, the preferred item used has varied across sessions as a result of pre-session preference assessments (e.g., Esch et al 2009;Miguel et al 2002;Rader et al 2014), and in yet others, multiple preferred items have been rotated across stimulus presentations within sessions (Esch et al 2005). Most of these procedural variations have not been evaluated systematically (for an exception, see Miliotis et al 2012; discussed below).…”

“…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.…”

“…Possible exceptions are three studies (Esch et al 2009;Miliotis et al 2012;Rader et al 2014) in which pairings between speech sounds and reinforcers were presented only after the participant responded to a prompt (termed an observing prompt) to orient toward the experimenter. Although these studies found positive effects on vocalizations for all but one participant, it is unknown if these effects can in any part be attributed to the observing prompt and the subsequent orienting response.…”

“…In the three published studies to date in which pairings between speech sounds and reinforcers were contingent on the child looking at the experimenter (Esch et al 2009;Miliotis et al 2012;Rader et al 2014), the timing of stimulus presentations was nevertheless controlled by the experimenter, because the observing prompt (e.g., Blook^) initiated each opportunity for reinforcement. Recently, Lepper and Petursdottir (under review) evaluated the effects of a response-contingent pairing procedure in which the participants could initiate stimulus presentations by pressing a button.…”