Increasing spontaneous verbal responding in autistic children using a time delay procedure.

Area of Science:

• Developmental Psychology
• Applied Behavior Analysis
• Speech Pathology

Background:

• Autistic children often struggle with spontaneous speech, with utterances controlled by external cues rather than environmental referents.
• Teaching spontaneous speech is crucial for communication development in autism.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of a time delay procedure in promoting spontaneous speech in autistic children.
• To assess the generalization of spontaneous speech skills.

Main Methods:

• A time delay procedure was implemented with seven autistic children.
• The procedure involved gradually increasing the delay between object presentation and vocalization modeling.
• The goal was to transfer stimulus control from the model to the object.

Main Results:

• All seven children successfully learned to request items spontaneously.
• The spontaneous speech behavior generalized across settings, people, situations, and untrained objects.
• The time delay procedure proved effective in fostering independent vocalizations.

Conclusions:

• The time delay procedure is a viable strategy for enhancing spontaneous speech in autistic children.
• This intervention facilitates generalization of communication skills.
• Findings support the use of behavioral techniques to improve speech in autism.