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| Int'l Symposium - Stimulus-Stimulus Pairings: Effects on Vocal/Verbal Behavior in Children |
| Saturday, May 28, 2005 |
| 2:30 PM–3:50 PM |
| Stevens 3 (Lower Level) |
| Area: VBC; Domain: Applied Research |
| Chair: Caio F. Miguel (New England Center for Children) |
| Discussant: Caio F. Miguel (New England Center for Children) |
| CE Instructor: Caio F. Miguel, Ph.D. |
| Abstract: We present three papers discussing the role of stimulus-stimulus pairing in the acquisition of vocal/verbal responding in children. Recent studies have shown that pairing adult vocalizations with preferred stimuli can increase speech sound vocalizations. Termed automatic reinforcement since no direct reinforcement is provided, the procedure may establish self-produced sounds as reinforcing events to the degree that vocalizations resemble the model during pairing; thus a childs vocalizations would function as conditioned reinforcers for vocalization responses. However, effects of this procedure are temporary, suggesting that direct reinforcement may be necessary to establish durable vocal behaviors. Esch and Carr report results of 3 experiments in children with autism in which the pairing procedure (1) failed to affect echoic responding and (2) failed to increase the frequency of post-pairing responding. Normand and Knoll report similar lack of effects of the pairing procedure on post-session target vocalizations in a child with autism. Practical and theoretical implications will be discussed.Dugdale reports research using combined behavioral and cognitive protocols to investigate rapid vocabulary acquisition of typically developing children via an equivalence procedure using stimulus-stimulus pairings between words and objects. Results suggest pairings produce emergent verbal skills that have relational properties associated with stimulus equivalence. |
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| Evaluating Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Direct Reinforcement in the Establishment of an Echoic Repertoire of Children Diagnosed with Autism |
| BARBARA E. ESCH (Western Michigan University), John L. Michael (Western Michigan University), James E. Carr (Western Michigan University) |
| Abstract: Pairing adult vocalizations with preferred stimuli can increase a child’s vocalizations. Termed ‘automatic reinforcement,’ the procedure may establish sounds as reinforcing events to the degree that those vocalizations resemble the model during pairing; thus a child’s vocalizations would function as conditioned reinforcers for vocalization responses. However, effects of the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure are temporary, suggesting that direct reinforcement may be necessary to establish durable vocal behaviors. Experiment 1 evaluated the strength of directly reinforced echoic responses following stimulus-stimulus pairings in a multiple baseline design across phonemes in 3 children with diagnoses of autism. Results showed no improvement over baseline of the pairing procedure on subsequent echoic responding. Experiment 2 was then conducted with 2 of the participants to identify effects of pairing on post-pairing vocalizations (i.e., automatically reinforced responses). This experiment, a replication of Miguel, Carr, and Michael (2002), found no increased post-session responding over pre-session vocalizations. Finally, Experiment 3 demonstrated that, for one of the 2 participants, shaping increased overall vowel frequency. The results of these experiments suggest that variables are yet to be delineated that influence the effectiveness of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on (1) post-pairing vocalization frequency and (2) acquisition of a verbal operant following such pairings. |
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| Effects of Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing on Vocalizations of a Child Diagnosed with Autism |
| MATTHEW P. NORMAND (Florida Institute of Technology), Melissa Louise Knoll (Florida Institute of Technology) |
| Abstract: This study replicated and extended the evaluation of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure reported in two recent studies in which researchers have suggested that vocalizations can become conditioned reinforcers for their own emission as a result of stimulus-stimulus pairing. A multiple baseline design across phonemes evaluated effects of a stimulus–stimulus pairing procedure on frequency of phonemes uttered by a child with autism. Data were collected during pre-session, post-session, and follow-up periods across three conditions: baseline, control, and stimulus-stimulus pairing. During baseline, frequency of targeted phonemes was recorded absent any experimenter interaction and prior to introduction of the pairing procedure. During the control condition, the experimenter vocalized the target phoneme and, after a 20-s delay, presented a preferred stimulus to the child. Preferred stimuli were identified via stimulus preference assessment. During pairings, the same phoneme was paired with delivery of preferred items by eliminating the 20-s delay between the experimenter’s utterance and delivery of the preferred stimulus. Results from post-session observations during the pairing condition showed little or no increase in target sounds. Data from the follow-up sessions, occurring 30-m after the post-session observations, showed occasional but inconsistent increases. Practical and theoretical implications of the results will be discussed. |
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| Symmetry, Equivalence, and Emergent Verbal Behavior in Young Children Following Unreinforced Exposure to Stimulus-Stimulus Pairings |
| NEIL DUGDALE (University of Wales, Bangor) |
| Abstract: During their second year of life, most normally-developing children exhibit a 'vocabulary spurt', a sudden and sustained increase in the rate at which they comprehend and produce new words. Through independent lines of study, cognitive psychologists and behavior analysts have each developed research protocols that have been (or can be) used in order to examine the emergent processes underlying this phenomenon of rapid word learning. My research program combines procedural elements from both behavioral and cognitive protocols in an attempt to advance our understanding of early vocabulary acquisition. The findings thus far suggest that very young children can learn relations between words and objects after merely a few unreinforced exposures to the word-object stimulus pairings, and that these emergent verbal skills have the relational properties associated with stimulus equivalence. |
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