CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Children with Autism

Children with Autism

Introduction

The title of the article under focus is “Increasing the Vocal Responses of Children with Autism and Developmental Disabilities Using Manual Sign Mand Training and Prompt Delay”. It discusses the empirical findings of various studies related to functional communication repertoire for children with developmental disabilities using manual sign manding. One of the main deficiencies in children with autism is the language and communication skills. Children with autism often find it challenging to communicate their needs and wants, or manding. Normal developing children develop this skill early in their lives. However, children with autism mostly rely on alternate approaches to meet their needs, including getting involved in problem behaviors. Nonetheless, there has been an increasing focus on verbal behavior proposed by Skinner in previous studies related to behavior analytic literature. The focus has been toward teaching language to children with autism. For instance, most of the researchers have developed various teaching procedures which are dependent on the arrangement of motivating operations (MOs).

Discussion

Mand training is an essential part of early phases of a language training program for children with autism. This is because mand gives children control over the environment to some extent and increases the significance of language as social behavior. Furthermore, mands may be more likely to be used spontaneously because of the motivational factor. Therefore, in theory, more likely to occur under a variety of environmental conditions. Aside from these functional reasons, an analysis of the language of infants suggests that mands are the language to develop.

Despite the recent popularity of this strategy and its supposed clinical utility, there is little research regarding this approach to teaching language in autism, particularly in comparison with more traditional teaching procedures.

Furthermore, the article also discusses that this method of creating communication repertoire may support the development of vocal responding. However, the results from previous studies also indicate that these approaches may only be effective for children who have previously developed a fair level of vocal imitation repertoire. In case of children who have not developed vocal responses such methods might not work. In addition, there are other studies as well, which show that the combination of prompt delay with communication methods and mand training may increase the vocal, verbal behavior repertoires of children who have developmental disabilities. Therefore, this article provides a study in response to the previous studies, to reproduce the findings of the previous research. Furthermore, the aim of the study is to teach alternative functional communication repertoire while replicating the previous findings by the use of manual sign language.

According to a previous study, the effects of discrete trial instruction and mand training were compared. The researchers found the effects through individual requests in children who had autism. This study used two multiple-base designs across participants. There were 3 participants who received mand training and DTI subsequently. Furthermore, the rest of the 3 participants received DTI before mand training. Throughout the study, researches also observed the participants' eye contact and difficult behaviors across ...