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Increasing the vocalizations of individuals with autism during intervention with a speech‐generating device
Author(s) -
Gevarter Cindy,
O'Reilly Mark F.,
Kuhn Michelle,
Mills Kasey,
Ferguson Raechal,
Watkins Laci,
Sigafoos Jeff,
Lang Russell,
Rojeski Laura,
Lancioni Giulio E.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of applied behavior analysis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1938-3703
pISSN - 0021-8855
DOI - 10.1002/jaba.270
Subject(s) - psychology , autism spectrum disorder , autism , reinforcement , echoic memory , audiology , context (archaeology) , differential reinforcement , intervention (counseling) , developmental psychology , cognition , neuroscience , medicine , social psychology , paleontology , psychiatry , biology
This study aimed to teach individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and limited vocal speech to emit target vocalizations while using a speech‐generating device (SGD). Of the 4 participants, 3 began emitting vocal word approximations with SGD responses after vocal instructional methods (delays, differential reinforcement, prompting) were introduced. Two participants met mastery criterion with a reinforcer delay and differential reinforcement, and 1 met criterion after fading an echoic model and prompt delay. For these participants, vocalizations initiated before speech outputs were shown to increase, and vocalizations generalized to a context in which the SGD was absent. The 4th participant showed high vocalization rates only when prompted. The results suggest that adding vocal instruction to an SGD‐based intervention can increase vocalizations emitted along with SGD responses for some individuals with ASD.