Replacing Maladaptive Speech With Verbal Labeling Responses: An Analysis of Generalized Responding

Abstract

We taught three mentally handicapped students to answer questions with verbal labels and evaluated the generalized effects of this training on their maladaptive speech (e.g., echolalia) and correct responding to untrained questions. The students received cues-pause-point training on an initial question set followed by generalization assessments on a different set in another setting. Probes were conducted on novel questions in three other settings to determine the strength and spread of the generalization effect. A multiple baseline across subjects design revealed that maladaptive speech was replaced with correct labels (answers) to questions in the training and all generalization settings. These results replicate and extend previous research that suggested that cues-pause-point procedures may be useful in replacing maladaptive speech patterns by teaching students to use their verbal labeling repertoires.

An Evaluation of Intraverbal Training to Generate Socially Appropriate Responses to Novel Questions

“…These include verbal imitation (as shown by Jason's results) and listener skills (e.g., responding to one's name, orienting towards the speaker). For example, Foxx, Faw, McMorrow, Kyle, and Bittle (1988), Foxx, McMorrow, Davis, andBittle (1987) systematically taught their participants to pause, attend, and respond to prompts following questions. Such interventions should be employed as necessary.…”

Long term maintenance of language and social skills

“…The basic plan in devising a treatment for echolalia was to develop procedures that reduced the likelihood of echolalic responses and`replaced' them with stimulus appropriate ones. The results of this work have been encouraging (Foxx & Faw, 1990;Foxx et al, 1987Foxx et al, , 1988bFoxx, Faw, McMorrow, Davis, & Bittle, 1988;. For example, some students not only learned appropriate responses to as many as 70 dierent verbal stimuli (i.e., questions and statements) in a total of about 12 hours of training, but also to use the trained responses (i) when persons other than the primary trainer presented the stimuli, (ii) in dierent settings, (iii) when no prompts, feedback or reinforcement were given, and (iv) several years after training (Foxx & Faw, 1990).…”

Long‐term Follow‐up of Echolalia and Question Answering

“…No dear differences in echolalia were apparent between the training and generalization sets, although correct performance was slightly higher on the former. The subjects' correct responding on the generalization sets was gratifying, because no attempt was made in the original studies to facilitate the transfer of stimulus control from the cues to the generalization set questions, whereas this was actively programmed in the training sets (Foxx et al, 1988).…”

“…Several studies using cues-pause-point procedures have shown that mentally handicapped individuals can be taught to use their established repertoires of labeling skills to answer questions rather than to echo (McMorrow & Foxx, 1986;McMorrow, Foxx, Faw, & Bittle, 1987) and that these skills generalize to untrained questions (Foxx, Faw, McMorrow, Kyle, & Bittle, 1988). Although these effects were encouraging, no information was provided regarding their durability (e.g., see Foxx, 1990;Foxx, Bittle, & Faw, 1989;Koegel & Rincover, 1977;Lovaas, 1987).…”

“…Foxx, Faw, McMorrow, Kyle, and Bittle (1988) Because McMorrow et al (1987) did not demonstrate functional control of generalization,Foxx et al (1988) attempted to do so. We also sought to measure the strength and spread of any generalization effects.…”