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Intraverbal Storytelling to Children with Autism

Evolutionary Psychology
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Evolutionary Psychology (PSYC 3265)

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Intraverbal Storytelling to Children with Autism

Abstract

In Brazil, it is estimated that there are approximately 2 million youngsters and children

diagnosed with autism and other cases of learning disabilities, a fac-tor that has led to an

increase on the demand for treatment aimed at the de-velopment of basic and academic

skills, such as reading, writing, fluency in interpreting texts, recalling and retelling a story

dictated by a teacher. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the efficacy of a

procedure to teach intraverbal storytelling to four Brazilian children (two autistic and two

with language delays). Three stories were taught to each participant and each story

comprised four segments represented by pictures and written scripts. The participants

had opportunities to read the scripts with help from the experimenter if necessary and, after

an interval, they had to retell the sto-ries. During training, echoic and visual prompts were

administered as correc-tions whenever a given child was unable to retell a given segment

appro-priately. Correct responses free from prompts resulted in praise and a token. After

gathering a given number of tokens, the participants could exchange them for a preferred

item like a toy or a favorite activity. As result, the partic-ipants were able to retell the stories

correctly when compared to baseline le-vels. Only one was unable to retell all the segments of

the third story, probably because she did not have more time to be exposed to the

programming con-tingencies due to the period of recess from school. The results provide

educa-tion professionals with specific directions for advocacy and service delivery that aim

to enhance school outcomes for students with ASD.

Keywords

Intraverbal Storytelling, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Language Delay, School

1. Introduction

The basic education policies of Brazil indicate that the aim of the schools is to develop reading, writing and calculation skills, in their different stages and levels of schooling, the basic preparation for higher education, work and citizenship, starting from an ethical formation, the development of intellectual autonomy and critical thinking and the understanding of the scientific-technological foun- dations and the productive processes. Specifically, Brazilian special education is based on the National Policy on Special Education in the Perspective of Inclusive Education, promulgated in 2008 by the Special Education Secretariat of the Ministry of Education (Brazil, 2008). This policy protects, as a central principle, the defense that every learner has the right to learn and participate in a school environment without any kind of discrimination, guiding education systems to provide strategies to meet special educational needs, expanding learning and development of students with intellectual disabilities, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (Fleith, 2011; Galvão & Beckman, 2016). In Brazil and in the world, the increase in the number of students diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder has raised the demand from parents and institu- tions for methods of evaluation and intervention based on scientific evidence for the implementation of practices of school inclusion, such as curricular adapta- tion, hiring specialized professionals for educational intervention in the school and complementary activities that enhance and amplify the basic academic skills already acquired by the student (Elsabbagh et al., 2012; Galvão & Beckman, 2016; Garbacz & McIntyre, 2016; Goitein & Cia, 2011; Nunes & Santos, 2015; Stichter, Riley-Tillman & Jimerson, 2016). However, education professionals are not yet adequately prepared for the challenge of offering specific pedagogical in- terventions for the development of academic skills in students with ASD. Al- though brazilian federal law advocates the inclusion of specialized educators in regular schools (Brazil, 2012), they are often identified as specialized education professionals for disabilities other than autism (for example, specific learning difficulties, Down syndrome or other learning and development disabilities). Mitjáns-Martinez (2009) points out that, historically, there is a strong ten- dency to associate the concept of school inclusion with the inclusion of students with special educational needs in a context of students with supposed standard development. Besides being a misconception, it places the need for special edu- cation as particularized exclusively in the subject. Thus, the need for appropriate evidence-based assessments and interventions for students with ASD, that may be applicable in the context of school, is critical. Considering these basic assumptions of education, as well as seeking to un- derstand and discuss the process of development of children diagnosed with au- tistic and other cases of learning disabilities, this research aimed to assess the ef- ficacy of a procedure to teach intraverbal storytelling to four brazilian children (two autistic and two with language delays) and that it is a required skill of the school activities. Many children with autism show deficit in developmental areas such as language and communication. They may present difficulties with both

emitted when the reinforcer itself is out of sight and the response is supposedly controlled by the motivating operation. However, it is common that some child- ren with autism are not able to respond when a visual stimulus is not present. There are verbal operants, which are emitted under the presence of verbal ante- cedent stimuli. In one case, for example, an adult presents a verbal antecedent stimulus like “say cookie” and the child repeats “cookie”. The adult then says “that is right!”, the generalized reinforcer responsible for maintaining the re- sponse. There is a point-to-point correspondence between the verbal antecedent stimulus and the response. This verbal operant is called by Skinner (1957) “echoic” and represents the prerequisite for the establishment of other verbal operants, like the mand and the tact, with a vocal topography. Another case of verbal operant controlled by a verbal antecedent stimulus is called “intraverbal” and poses a harder challenge for many children with autism and other cases of developmental disabilities due to the lack of point-to-point correspondence be- tween the verbal antecedent stimulus and the response. As an example, consider the case of an adult who approaches a child and asks “what do you eat?”. The child on his/her turn, says “cookie” and the adult says “that is correct!”. This generalized reinforcer maintains the verbal response that is considered correct due to arbitrarily established criteria by the verbal community. This manuscript emphasizes this particular verbal operant, considering the cases of many children that, although present a repertoire with hundreds of words and phrases emitted as mands and tacts (expressive language) and also a good per- formance on tasks that require receptive responses (listener behavior), lack the intraverbal repertoire. Several studies on Applied Behavior Analysis have fo- cused on the establishment of two kinds of intraverbal repertoire: answering questions, like studies done by Finkel and Williams (2001); Ingvarsson, Tiger, Hanley, and Stephenson (2007); Sundberg and Sundberg (1990); and naming stimuli that are members of several categories, like studies by Braam and Poling (1983); Goldsmith, LeBlanc and Sautter (2007); Grannan and Rehfeldt (2012); Miguel, Petursdottir and Carr (2005); Partington and Bailey (1993); Petursdottir, Carr, Lechago and Almason (2008); Sautter, Leblanc, Jay, Goldsmith and Carr (2011). Some studies comprised methodologies of teaching that focused on changing the stimulus control by manipulating echoic prompts and tact prompts. As an example, consider the case of the adult who presents the question “what do you eat?”. If the child can’t answer this question appropriately, but has a good reper- toire of tact and echoic behavior, the adult can manipulate one of them as a prompt. One possibility is when the adult, immediately after the question, presents an echoic model by saying “cookie” or a picture portraying the cookie as an opportunity for a tact response. As the child responds under the control of the prompt correctly during several trials, the adult may begin to gradually fade out the prompt by delaying its presentation. This is done in order to make a change on stimulus control possible. That means that, with time, the controlling variable shifts from the prompt to the verbal antecedent stimulus solely, the

question “what do you eat?”, which sets the occasion for the intraverbal re- sponse, as suggested by several authors: Braam and Poling (1983), Coon and Miguel (2012), Finkel and Williams (2001), Golsmith et al. (2007), Humphreys et al. (2013), Ingvarsson and Hollobaugh (2011), Ingvarsson (2011), Kodak, Fuchtman and Paden (2012), Miguel et al. (2005), Petursdottir et al. (2008); Pe- tursdottir, Ólafsdóttir, Aradóttir (2008), Polick, Carr and Hanney (2012), Sund- berg and Sundberg (1990), Valentino, Shillingsburg and Call (2012), Vedora, Meunier and Mackay (2009). In some of the mentioned studies, a textual prompt was used besides a tact or echoic prompt like Braam and Poling (1983), Emmick, Cihon and Eschleman (2010), Finkel and Williams (2001), Ingvarsson (2011), Vedora and Conant (2015), Vedora, Meunier and Mackay (2009). According to Skinner (1957), the textual behavior occurs when, for example, an adult presents a flashcard with a printed word “cookie” on it and a child says “cookie” out loud. The adult then socially reinforces the correct response. It is also important to point out that there were studies by Grannan and Rehfeldt (2012), Miguel et al. (2005), Par- tington and Bailey (1993), Petursdottir, Carr, Lechago and Amalson (2008) that investigated the effects of teaching other repertoire (tacting categories) over the emergence of intraverbals in typically developing children and also children di- agnosed with autism. On these studies, the intraverbals were not directly taught and it was possible to notice the emergence effect to some extent in some partic- ipants. Overall, all of the verbal operants plus several other non-verbal repertoires are important for human development in several social relevant environments, in- cluding family and school. Impairment on these repertoires draws the attention to the need of establishing special treatments to ameliorate the difficulties. The case of intraverbal frequently is a critical one. It is considered the most complex verbal operant to teach, according to Sundberg (2008). Problems with this re- pertoire may be due to the fact of a child being unable to respond appropriately even to simple verbal antecedents, such as “tell me your name”. Besides there may be a problem like rote responding, considering that, even if a certain child learns how to answer correctly to the verbal stimulus mentioned, he/she may fail to generalize the response to variations of the verbal stimulus such as “who are you?” which sets the occasion for the same response. Impairments on generali- zation may also be verified when a child fails to vary the response under a verbal stimulus which sets the occasion for more than one kind of verbal response as correct. That is the case when an adult presents “name an animal” to a child. He/she may manage to give a correct response like “dog”, but fail to vary the re- sponse when the adult says “name another animal”. Sundberg (2008) states that the reasons why the intraverbal behavior is harder to teach in comparison with other verbal operants are many and he listed some. He says that the verbal antecedent stimuli composed of words and sentences are constantly changing and typically consist of many parts. On the other hand, the antecedent stimuli that evoke other verbal operants tend to be constant as well as

lowed by praise and access to preferred tangible items. If a given participant was unable to verbalize all the segments of the story being assessed, a trial with prompts was initiated. On this case, the experimenter presented a verbal antece- dent such as “tell me the story of...” and opened the book that contained all the segments of the story. The first page was showed with the first segment, so the child could describe it. If the child was unable to describe the picture or read the script, the experimenter pointed to the words and provided the names orally, so the child could repeat them. This procedure was done until the entire story had been presented. After this, a transfer trial was initiated. The purpose of this one consisted of shifting the control by the visual stimuli to the verbal antecedent “tell me the story of...” solely. Since this represented the backward chaining procedure, each targeted segment of the story was covered with a white sheet of paper. If the targeted segment was the last one, all the previous ones were first presented and the child had the opportunity to describe them with the help from the experimenter with echoic and textual prompts, if necessary. During the presentation of the targeted segment, the visual stimuli were covered, so the child had an opportunity to de- scribe the segment without the need of prompts. During other sessions, after the child described the targeted segment correctly during two consecutive assess- ment trials, the criteria changed to include both the mastered last segment and the previous one and the visual stimuli from both segments would be covered during the transfer trials. The same criteria for inclusion of the other segments remained until the children were able to retell the entire story on two assessment trials and without the need of prompts. As result, Valentino et al. (2015) pointed out that the procedures effectively established the intraverbal storytelling for all of the participants with autism. Plus, they stated that a generalization effect was observed since the correct res- ponses were collected in different environments and under the presence of new instructors. Nevertheless, the authors also pointed out that changes on the pro- cedures were needed for two participants because of a low frequency of correct responses and repetitive verbalizations. The changes included 1) the presenta- tion of vocal prompts during transfer trials and assessment trials to stop the voc- al stereotypies and redirect the children back to task; 2) use of a book similar to the one from the original stories but with all the pages blank (on this case, the children did not respond if the book was absent); 3) use of verbal rules about getting back to describing the story. This was used for one participant to inter- rupt the repetitive verbalizations. The study by Valentino et al. (2015) focused on procedures of social and aca- demic relevance and may represent a way of helping children with autism and other developmental disabilities to acquire complex intraverbals, which are ne- cessary in several contexts, including school. Many children seem to have diffi- culty in developing necessary repertoires for reading comprehension. The im- pairments pose a challenge for educators and interventionists. The present study had some features similar to the ones described in the research by Valentino et

al. (2015). Nevertheless, the backward chaining was not used and two of the four participants had been diagnosed with autism (the other two non-autistic child- ren presented delay in language acquisition, especially intraverbals). Overall, the present study focused on answering the following research question: are the procedures to teach intraverbal storytelling effective for children with autism and other cases of language delays, when a backward chaining procedure is not administered?

3. Method

Participants, Settings and Materials Four brazilian children participated in the research. Two of them (P1 and P2) were diagnosed with autism and the remaining (P3 and P4), although non-autistic, showed delays in language acquisition. All of them benefited from Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services at home, but the procedures from the current study were applied at the context of a clinic situated in a private univer- sity in Brazil. Each child was attended individually and the teaching area con- tained a table, chairs and materials necessary for the sessions, like flashcards portraying scenes and printed texts that could be manipulated to construct stories. The flashcards measured 6 × 3 cm, each story consisted of four segments and each segment represented a different flashcard and a printed text. Three stories, that were four segments in length, were used for all participants, the segments contained from three to nine words and the texts were written in Portuguese. Before the beginning of data collection through the main procedures from this research, an assessment was conducted in order to establish important verbal behavior repertoire for each participant. According to the Verbal Behavior Mi- lestones Assessment and Placement Program/VB-MAPP by Sundberg (2008), all of the children were performing beyond level 2 in some aspects and their reper- toires comprised the abilities of making requests (mands) using phrases; they were able to identify hundreds of items and pictures as both speaker (tact) and listener (receptive language); they were able to demonstrate generalized matching to sample skills; they were able to manipulate toys appropriately and in a func- tional way; all of them were developing social abilities for a better interaction with the typically developing children at the same age; all of them showed both generalized motor imitation and vocal imitation (echoics); they were all able to identify many stimuli as both listener and speaker (intraverbal) by their functions, features and classes; their abilities to participate in group activities at school were also improving, even though some deficits were still a reality; they were developing better abilities to communicate with other people with proper grammar use, al- though three of them in particular still showed difficulties to use articles, prepo- sitions and specially pronouns in sentences. All of them were able to read (tex- tual behavior) several words and phrases. Regarding the duration of the study, all sessions were conducted two or three times per week until completion. Response Measurement The primary dependent variable was retelling the story segments correctly. All

Figure 1. Number of correct story segments by P1 during baseline, reading and treatment condition. The upper, middle and lower graphs represent stories 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

baseline for the three stories. When the reading condition was implemented for the first story, no correct responses were emitted as well. During treatment, nine blocks of trials were needed to achieve criterion. During the following training, performance dropped to three correct responses in a block of trials once, but then performance was kept on 100% correct responses until the end of data col- lection. For the second story, treatment condition was also effective and crite- rion was met after eight blocks. During the third story, the condition was not fi- nished because vacation time started and data collection was interrupted. It is interesting to note that P1 was able to retell some of the second and third story segments during several blocks of trials of the reading condition. Figure 2 shows that P2 did not emit any correct responses during baseline. For the first story, no segment was retold during reading condition. Treatment condition shows that criterion was achieved after 11 blocks of trials. During the second and third story, the reading condition was not enough to establish a reper- toire free from errors, although P2 was able to retell three story segments correctly

Figure 2. Number of correct story segments by P2 during baseline, reading and treatment condition. The upper, middle and lower graphs represent stories 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

in five consecutive blocks of trials (third story). The treatment condition was ef- fective for both second and third stories with six and three blocks to meet crite- rion, respectively. Figure 3 shows that P3 did not emit any correct responses during baseline. For the first story, the performance during the reading condition remained at three correct responses for three consecutive blocks of trials before implementa- tion of the following condition. During treatment, six blocks were necessary to meet criterion and the performance remained at 100% accuracy during all the remaining blocks of trials. For the second and third story, the reading condition was also not sufficient to establish the repertoire, but the treatment condition was effective. The number of blocks of trials needed to achieve criterion was five and three for the second and third story, respectively. Figure 4 shows that P4 did not emit any correct responses during baseline. For the first story, there were no correct responses during the reading condition and the treatment was effective in establishing the intraverbal storytelling. Seven blocks of trials were necessary to achieve criterion. During the second and third story, the reading condition was also not enough to establish the repertoire, al- though P4 was able to retell one segment of the third story twice. The treatment condition was effective and seven and five blocks were necessary to meet criterion

Figure 4. Number of correct story segments by P4 during baseline, reading and treatment condition. The upper, middle and lower graphs represent stories 1, 2 and 3, respectively.

since they had some textual repertoire. Echoic prompts were administered as well, but only when a participant was not able to read a given segment and could be benefitted with echoic prompts. Nevertheless, as a limitation of the study, da- ta on reading and vocal imitation, when necessary, were not taken and this should be considered for future research. In Valentino et al. (2015) research, the authors suggested that the Naming Theory (Horne & Lowe, 1996) could be considered as a way to conceptualize the successful outcome in their study. This might be considered for the current study as well. According to the Naming Theory, naming is defined as responding both as speaker and a listener to a given stimulus. During Valentino et al. (2015) research, the experimenter sometimes pointed to and read (tact) the textual sti-

muli (words and phrases) and the participants could act as listeners by orienting to the stimuli. This should be considered for this research as well, although the experimenter read the textual stimuli only when a given participant was not able to read the story independently. During these interventions, the participants were socially reinforced both as speaker and listener. As on the previous re- search, the participants sometimes had the opportunity to observe the experi- menter while reading out loud and pointing to the words. The children may have participated as a speaker by covertly or overtly echoing the stimuli. In the current study, since reading the scripts was allowed, correct reading/textual be- havior was also socially reinforced and may have contributed to the establish- ment of the correct intraverbal storytelling behavior. Also, the authors pointed out that recalling a story read by another person is an example of delayed vocal imitation. It is possible that on their research and also the current one, the par- ticipants may covertly have echoed the stories or parts of them. Without a doubt, behavioral training has been appointed as a solid path to be followed not only by children with autism, but also by their guardians and teachers. Data produced in the APRENDE laboratory at Federal University of Pará—UFPA (Pará, Brazil), by Ferreira (2015) and Ferreira, Silva and Barros (2016) and in the LAPITEA laboratory at Ceuma University (Maranhão, Brazil), by Matos (2016) have corroborated previous studies (Lafasakis & Sturmey, 2007; Sarokoff & Sturmey, 2004) regarding the efficiency and viability of ABA training when attending children with autism through caregivers. It is important to remember that, on Valentino et al. (2015) research, changes on the procedures were necessary for two of the three children involved, since they engaged in repetitive responding across all conditions of the study. The ad- dition of a visual prompt, a blank book resembling the one used during treat- ment, was necessary for these participants. However, such adaptations were not needed for the two autistic participants of the current study, even though one of them used to engage in echolalia during interventions applied on his therapy sessions out of the context of the current study. The intraverbal behavior is a verbal operant present in many interactions among human beings in lots of situations. It is, for example, extremely impor- tant in the context of school. Activities that comprise this ability are such as reading comprehension and those explored on the current research. Frequently, children diagnosed with autism and other cases of developmental disabilities show a poor performance on these tasks and this draws the attention to the need of specialized treatments that may amend the deficits. The present study in part replicates the one conducted by Valentino et al. (2015) and may represent a suitable way of ameliorating some difficulties shown by autistic children in tasks that comprise the intraverbal ability. The scientific literature shows promising results obtained with interventions based on ABA and this study was directed to evaluate the effectiveness of an intraverbal teaching procedure for children with autism and language delays. Impairment in intraverbal repertoire is critical for many children with autism.

Galvão, P. G., & Beckman, M. V. R. (2016). A Educação Inclusiva no Contexto da Política Nacional da Educação Especial: Atuação e Compromisso da Psicologia Escolar. In D. C. Matos (Ed.), Análise do Comportamento Aplicada ao Desenvolvimento Atípico com Ênfase em Autismo (pp. 199-226). Porto Velho: AICSA. Garbacz, S. A., & McIntyre, L. L. (2016). Conjoint Behavioral Consultation for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. School Psychology Quarterly, 31, 450-466. doi/10.1037/spq Goitein, P. C., & Cia, F. (2011). Interações Familiares de Crianças com Necessidades Educacionais Especiais: Revisão da Literatura Nacional. Psicologia Escolar e Educa- cional, 15, 43-51. doi/10.1590/S1413- Goldsmith, T. R., LeBlanc, L. A., & Sautter, R. A. (2007). Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 1, 1-13. Gomes, C. G. S., Silveira, A. D., & Rates, A. C. (2016). Ensino de habilidades básicas para pessoas com autismo: manual para Intervenção Comportamental Intensiva. Curitiba: Appris. Grannan, L., & Rehfeldt, R. A. (2012). Emergent Intraverbal Responses Via Tact and Match-to-Sample Instruction. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45, 601-605. doi/10.1901/jaba.2012.45- Horne, P. J., & Lowe, C. F. (1996). On the Origins of Naming and Other Symbolic Behavior. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 65, 185-241. doi/10.1901/jeab.1996.65- Humphreys, T., Polick, A. S., Howk, L. L., Thaxton, J. R., & Ivancic, A. P. (2013). An Evaluation of Repeating the Discriminative Stimulus When Using Least-to-Most Prompting to Teach Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 46, 534-538. doi/10.1002/jaba. Ingvarsson, E. T. (2011). Further Evaluation of Prompting Tactics for Establishing Intra- verbal Responding in Children with Autism. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 27, 75-93. Ingvarsson, E. T., & Hollobaugh, T. (2011). A Comparison of Prompting Tactics to Estab- lish Intraverbals in Children with Autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44, 659-664. doi/10.1901/jaba.2011.44- Kodak, T., Fuchtman, & Paden, A. (2012). A Comparison of Intraverbal Training Proce- dures for Children with Autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45, 155-160. doi/10.1901/jaba.2012.45- Lafasakis, M., & Sturmey, P. (2007). Training Parent Implementation of Discrete-Trial Teaching: Effects on Generalization of Parent Teaching and Child Correct Responding. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40, 685-689. doi/10.1901/jaba.2007.685- Lovaas, O. I. (1987). Behavioral Treatment and Normal Educational and Intellectual Functioning in Young Autistic Children. Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, 55, 3-9. doi/10.1037/0022-006X.55.1. Matos, D. C. (2016) Análise do comportamento aplicada ao desenvolvimento atípico com ênfase em autismo. Porto Velho: AICSA. McEachin, J. J., Smith, T., & Lovaas, O. I. (1993). Long-Term Outcome for Children with Autism Who Received Early Intensive Behavioral Treatment. American Journal on Mental Retardation, 97, 359-372. Miguel, C. F., Petursdottir, A. I., & Carr, J. E. (2005). The Effects of Multiple-Tact and Receptive-Discrimination Instruction on the Acquisition of Intraverbal Behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 21, 27-41.

Mitjáns-Martinez, A. M. (2009). Psicologia Escolar e Educacional: compromissos com a educação brasileira. Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, 13, 169-177. doi/10.1590/S1413- Nunes, D. R. P., & Santos, L. B. (2015). Mesclando Práticas em Comunicação Alternativa: Caso de uma Criança com Autismo. Psicologia Escolar e Educacional, 19, 59-69. doi/10.1590/2175-3539/2015/ Partington, J. W., & Bailey, J. S. (1993). Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Preschool Children. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 11, 9-18. Petursdottir, A. I., Carr, J. E., Lechago, S. A., & Almason, S. M. (2008). An Evaluation of Intraverbal Instruction and Listener Instruction for Teaching Categorization Skills. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41, 53-68. doi/10.1901/jaba.2008.41- Petursdottir, A. I., Ólafsdóttir, & Aradóttir, B. (2008). The Effects of Tact and Listener Training on the Emergence of Bidirectional Intraverbal Relations. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 41, 411-415. doi/10.1901/jaba.2008.41- Polick, A. S., Carr, J. E., & Hanney, N. M. (2012). A Comparison of General and Descrip- tive Praise in Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism. Journal of Ap- plied Behavior Analysis, 45, 593-599. doi/10.1901/jaba.2012.45- Sallows, G. O., & Graupner, T. D. (2005). Intensive Behavioral Treatment for Children with Autism: Four-Year Outcome and Predictors. American Journal of Mental Retar- dation, 110, 417-428. doi/10.1352/0895-8017(2005)110[417:IBTFCW]2.0; Sarokoff, R. A., & Sturmey, P. (2004). The Effects of Behavioral Skills Training on Staff Implementation of Discrete-Trial Teaching. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 37, 535-538. doi/10.1901/jaba.2004.37- Sautter, R. A., LeBlanc, L. A., Jay, A. A., Goldsmith, & Carr, J. E. (2011). The Role of Problem Solving in Complex Intraverbal Repertoires. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 44, 227-244. doi/10.1901/jaba.2011.44- Skinner, B. F. (1957). Verbal Behavior. New York, NY: Appleton-Century-Crofts. doi/10.1037/11256- Stichter, J. P., Riley-Tillman, C., & Jimerson, S. R. (2016). Assessing, Understanding, and Supporting Students with Autism at School: Contemporary Science, Practice, and Pol- icy. School Psychology Quarterly, 31, 443-449. doi/10.1037/spq Sundberg, C. T., & Sundberg, M. L. (1990). Comparing Topography-Based Verbal Beha- vior with Stimulus Selection-Based Verbal Behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 8, 31-41. Sundberg, M. L. (2008). The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Pro- gram: The VB-MAPP (2nd ed.). Concord, CA: AVB Press. Valentino, A. L., Shillingsburg, M. A., & Call, N. A. (2012). Comparing the Effects of Echoic Prompts and Echoic Prompts plus Modeled Prompts on Intraverbal Behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 45, 431-435. doi/10.1901/jaba.2012.45- Vedora, J., & Conant, E. (2015). A Comparison of Prompting Tactics for Teaching Intra- verbals to Young Adults with Autismo. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 31, 267-276. Vedora, J., & Meunier, L. (2009). Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism: A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 25, 79-86. doi/10.1007/s40616-015-0030-

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Intraverbal Storytelling to Children with Autism

Course: Evolutionary Psychology (PSYC 3265)

12 Documents
Students shared 12 documents in this course

University: Columbus State University

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Intraverbal Storytelling to Children with Autism
Abstract
In Brazil, it is estimated that there are approximately 2 million youngsters and children
diagnosed with autism and other cases of learning disabilities, a fac-tor that has led to an
increase on the demand for treatment aimed at the de-velopment of basic and academic
skills, such as reading, writing, fluency in interpreting texts, recalling and retelling a story
dictated by a teacher. The purpose of the present investigation was to assess the efficacy of a
procedure to teach intraverbal storytelling to four Brazilian children (two autistic and two
with language delays). Three stories were taught to each participant and each story
comprised four segments represented by pictures and written scripts. The participants
had opportunities to read the scripts with help from the experimenter if necessary and, after
an interval, they had to retell the sto-ries. During training, echoic and visual prompts were
administered as correc-tions whenever a given child was unable to retell a given segment
appro-priately. Correct responses free from prompts resulted in praise and a token. After
gathering a given number of tokens, the participants could exchange them for a preferred
item like a toy or a favorite activity. As result, the partic-ipants were able to retell the stories
correctly when compared to baseline le-vels. Only one was unable to retell all the segments of
the third story, probably because she did not have more time to be exposed to the
programming con-tingencies due to the period of recess from school. The results provide
educa-tion professionals with specific directions for advocacy and service delivery that aim
to enhance school outcomes for students with ASD.
Keywords
Intraverbal Storytelling, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Language Delay, School

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