Examining procedures for training echoic responses

Document Type

Thesis

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Degree

M.S. Applied Behavior Analysis

Date Completed

2014

First Committee Member

Ahearn, William

Second Committee Member

Bourret, Jason

Third Committee Member

Thompson, Rachel

Abstract

"The most effective teaching procedures should be utilized when teaching verbal behavior to children diagnosed with autism. Establishing an echoic repertoire should be a priority as it is a prerequisite for developing more advanced verbal behavior (Sundberg, 2007; Sundberg & Partington, 2007). Various methods to teach echoic responding to children diagnosed with autism have been described (e.g., Baer, Peterson, & Sherman, 1967, Sundberg, Michael, Partington, & Sundberg; Drash, High, & Tudor, 1999), but there have been few comparisons of them. The purpose of the current study was to determine the most effective echoic teaching procedure for each participant. Four children diagnosed with developmental disabilities between the ages of 13- and 18-years-old were taught echoic responses using vocal imitation, stimulus-stimulus pairing, and a mand-model procedure using an adapted alternating treatment design (Wolery, Bailey, & Sugai, 2008). Responses were evaluated in echoic and mand probes before and after training. These probes were conducted with a multielement design (Barlow & Hayes, 1979). The vocal imitation procedure produced echoic responding in three participants, the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure produced echoic responding in three participants, and the mand-model procedure produced echoic responding in two participants."

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