BRSS Honor Thesis Eleanor Giles The Team Eleanor

BRSS Honor Thesis Eleanor Giles

The Team • Eleanor Giles- Undergraduate student • Brittain Coleman- Master’s student • Brighid Fronapfel-Sonderegger- Doctural student

Brighid’s Project • Stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure • Increase vocal behavior/mands in children with autism • Prerequisite: <33% on echoic section of Vocal Language Assessment

Brighid’s Project • Stimulus named 3 -5 times followed by immediate delivery of that stimulus • If child emitted echoic response stimulus was delivered • Mastered: once child emitted echoic response 80% during pairing over 2 consecutive sessions

Brighid’s Project • Mand training: stimulus presented, delivered if phoneme emitted within 3 seconds • Mastered: phoneme emitted independently within 3 seconds 80%, 2 consecutive sessions • Once mastered: stimulus present throughout the school day and delivery remained contingent upon the vocal response of the child

Eleanor and Brittain’s Project • Analysis of the successful aspects of Brighid’s project. • Data taken in several areas: • Vocal behavior of the children • Reinforcement delivery by the tutor • Assessment of the data to see frequency of pairings made

Participants • 1 child aged 4 – diagnosed with autism – 30 hours a week of intensive behavior therapy • The practicum students working with this child

My tasks • Collect data from videos of therapy sessions • Research articles relating to stimulus-stimulus pairing and treatment integrity • Review Brittain’s paper • Write my own thesis

Data Tables- Tally Data Sheet Video # and length of video: Functional Vocalizations Trained Response? Reinforced? #1 18: 30 IIIIIIIIIIII Tangible? Social? IIIIIIIIIIII Non-Sense Vocalizations IIIIIIIIIIIIII Edible? Reinforced? Tangible? Edible? Vocal Stereotypy? Hand Stim? IIIIIIIIII

Comprehensive Data Sheet 4] # of 5) # of 1] 3] # of Reinforced reinforcers Video 2] Length Functional that were of Video Vocalizations social # 1 18: 30 13 12 12 6) # of reinforcers that were tangible or edible 10] Ratio of: # of emissions of trained vocalizations/# of vocalizations 11] # of 9] Ratio of % of total # reinforced by vocalizations Reinforcers %tangible- edible/ specific that are vocal % social tangible/ edible stereotypy 100% edible, 100% social 92% 20 7] # of Non- 8] #of Sense Reinforced Vocalizatio Non-Sense ns Vocalizations 12 28 0 12] # of [7] and simultaneous physical stim (hand stim) 13 13] Total # of vocalizations (combine [3] and [7]) 41

Analysis of data • How often social praise was delivered • How often tangible/edible reinforcement was delivered • Calculated the percentage of reinforcement that paired social praise with the stimulus – No pairing was required during Brighid’s procedure

Analysis of data • 67. 5% of functional vocalizations were reinforced • 64. 5% of functional vocalizations were reinforced by social praise • 63% of functional vocalizations were reinforced by tangible/edible • 97. 5% had a pairing of social reinforcement and reinforcement through delivery of tangible/edible

Conclusions • Consistent pairing of the 2 stimuli is important when attempting to increase vocal behavior • Social praise enough when delay was required – Tangible/edible delivered after completed task

Conclusions • Hoped/ prediction that non-sense vocalizations would decrease as functional increased – Data showed no decrease in vocal stereotypy – Further research- find ways of decreasing vocal stereotypy

Overall Experience • Very positive! • Enjoyed getting research experience – Chance to analyze what is being done in treatment – Experience with writing – Chance to work with grad students • Brittain is the best!

• Thank you! • Questions?