Smita Awasthi
Clinical Director of Behavior Momentum India, India
Title: The Role of Stimulus-Stimulus-Pairing On The Emergence of Speech in 58 Non-Vocal Children with Autism
Biography
Biography: Smita Awasthi
Abstract
Children with autism exhibit significant delays in speech production and most require highly specialized training (Harlaar et al., 2008; Rutter 1985). A variety of technologies such as echoic training (Koegel et al, 1998), antecedent rapid motor imitation (Ross & Greer 2003), stimulus-stimulus pairing (Sundberg, et al.1996) have been used for inducing vocalizations in children with autism with some success. The current Experiment was conducted with n=58 non-vocal mute participants with autism between ages 1.5 and 13.5 years and examined the effectiveness of sign-mand training with paired vocal stimuli in inducing vocalization with permanent effects. Replications were conducted across 13 non-concurrent multiple baseline designs across participants. Mean IOA was 89% (54%-100%) and treatment integrity was 89% (73%-100%) . Results demonstrated under conditions of motivating operations stimulus-stimulus pairing evoked first instances of speech in 83% participants on a mastery criteria of n=7 vocalizations.