Association for Behavior Analysis International

Motor imitation and vocal emulation are both crucial developmental cusps that allow children to contact new contingencies and acquire new skills. When individuals acquire motor imitation repertoires, they will learn novel motor responses through models without requiring physical prompts. Furthermore, vocal emulation is the foundation of parroting and echoic repertoires that various vocal verbal operants build on. Different from the traditional I do then you do, or I say then you say methods of teaching motor imitation and vocal emulation, we are presenting four papers that employed reciprocal training procedures in this symposium. The first two papers employed a reciprocal imitation training (RIT) to teach gross motor imitation and a mirror procedure to teach oral motor imitation which also led to increase in vocalization. The latter two papers discussed how the implementation of contingent vocal imitation/emulation procedure induced vocalization and novel parroting/echoic responses. All four papers found increase in the participants imitation/emulation responses following the reciprocal trainings.

The target audience of the symposium are practitioners who work with pre-verbal population who wants to teach motor imitation/vocal emulation repertoires.

Experimenters conducted two experiments testing the effects of a Do-See correspondence training procedure on participant’s gross motor and generalized imitation repertoires. Experiment 1 was our pilot study, where we tested the effects of Do-See on 5 developmentally delayed toddler’s imitation repertoire. Following several unsuccessful learning trials and research-based interventions and tactics, experimenters implemented Do-See based on the imitation “play therapy” found in several cognitive and developmental fields of research. During the first phase of the intervention, experimenters imitated participants in 2-minute sessions, recording the number of times the participant acknowledged their mimicry. In the second phase of the intervention, experimenters interspersed see-do opportunities while continuing to mimic the participant and record acknowledgements. In Experiment 1 we utilized a nonconcurrent pre- and post-intervention across participants design, with an embedded changing criterion design for each participant once we established a baseline of responding. All 5 of our toddler participants had an increase in correct responses to gross motor imitations following the Do-See procedure, and 4 of the 5 participants demonstrated 100% accuracy in gross imitation assessments and demonstrated Generalized Imitation. In Experiment 2 we replicated the pilot study with some modifications to the criterion and procedures with 3 preschool participants with IEPs and examined the effects of Do-See using a multiple probe across participants’ design. Although all participants showed improvements in their imitation responses overall during post-intervention probes, only 1 of the 3 met the criterion for gross motor imitation. Differences are discussed in terms of the two different populations and procedures.

Previous research has shown that contingent vocal imitation has a reinforcing effect on the vocalizations emitted by preverbal children. While the extant literature is promising, comparisons between contingent vocal imitation and other consequences such as contingent interaction or noncontingent physical touch have not been explored experimentally. Furthermore, the potential collateral effects of these reinforcement contingencies on children’s orienting responses and echoic responses have not been systematically investigated. This study examined the effects of four conditions (i.e., contingent vocal imitation, contingent interaction, noncontingent vocal imitation, noncontingent physical touch) and one no-interaction control condition on the vocalizations emitted by three preverbal autistic children. We evaluated the effects of these conditions using an alternating treatments design embedded within a multiple probe design across participants. Contingent vocal imitation led to greater increases in the vocalizations emitted by all three participants compared to all the other conditions, and the size of this effect was high. We also found increases in the orienting responses during the contingent imitation condition and increases in echoic responses post-intervention for two of the participants. We discussed our findings in the context of cooperation and the symbolic inheritance system said to be unique to humans.

The purpose of the study was to evaluate the use of video modeling with a mirror on oral motor imitation and to increase echoic responses and independent speech production. Three early children aged 2 to 3 with disabilities participated in this study using a multipe probe design. The intervention involved video modeling and a tablet PC's selfie screen as a mirror substitute. All instructional sessions included video models until the participants reached the mastery criterion (80% accuracy across twice) for each short-term objective that consisted of two to three operants. Video models faded completely subsequently, and sessions continued on the same operants until the mastery criteria were met without the video model. Results indicated that video modeling and the mirror facilitated the acquisition of oral motor imitation in two out of the three participants. Mastery of 10 different target oral motor movements, without requiring mastery of the corresponding sounds, led to increased accuracy in echoic responses not directly taught. Furthermore, two out of three participants showed increased independent vocalization in the free-play setting. The study is ongoing.

Caregiver’s vocal imitation and modeling provided contingent on infant vocalization has been shown to be an important factor in the development of language skills in many populations, including children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While there is a body of research outlining the use of a contingent vocal imitation (CVI) procedure with infants, there is very limited research on applying the CVI procedure to young children with ASD. This study examined the effectiveness of the CVI procedure implemented by therapists on increasing general vocalizations and also, more specifically, echoic language in three children with ASD. Following an initial baseline, the effects of CVI were compared to a noncontingent vocalization control condition using a modified multielement design with an initial baseline condition and a reversal. All four participants demonstrated an increase in vocalizations and two participants demonstrated increases in echoic language in the CVI conditions as compared to initial baseline and control conditions. Implications for application and future research are discussed.