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ENHANCING EARLY COMMUNICATION THROUGH INFANT SIGN TRAINING
Author(s) -
Thompson Rachel H.,
CotnoirBichelman Nicole M.,
McKerchar Paige M.,
Tate Trista L.,
Dancho Kelly A.
Publication year - 2007
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 - 10.1901/jaba.2007.23-06
Subject(s) - psychology , sign language , crying , sign (mathematics) , manual communication , stimulus control , reinforcement , stimulus (psychology) , developmental psychology , audiology , communication , cognitive psychology , social psychology , medicine , neuroscience , linguistics , mathematical analysis , philosophy , mathematics , nicotine
Existing research suggests that there may be benefits to teaching signing to hearing infants who have not yet developed vocal communication. In the current study, each of 4 infants ranging in age from 6 to 10 months was taught a simple sign using delayed prompting and reinforcement. In addition, Experiment 1 showed that 2 children independently signed in a variety of novel stimulus conditions (e.g., in a classroom, with father) after participating in sign training under controlled experimental conditions. In Experiment 2, crying and whining were replaced with signing when sign training was implemented in combination with extinction.