Advisor(s)

Julie S. Weiss

Contributor(s)

Susan Langer, Chata Dickson

Date of Award

2010

Date Accepted

8-2010

Degree Grantor

Northeastern University

Degree Level

M.S.

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department or Academic Unit

Bouvé College of Health Sciences. Department of Counseling and Applied Educational Psychology.

Keywords

Auditiory Stimulus, Edible, Matching-to-Sample, TAG, Verbal Praise

Subject Categories

Autistic children - Behavior modification

Disciplines

Educational Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

Abstract

Auditory feedback has been used to shape behavior. Using TAG (teaching with acoustical guidance) has some advantages: the auditory stimulus can be delivered immediately following the behavior, produces one sound which is uniform across trainers or experimenters and it is easy to implement. In a matching-to-sample task using arbitrary stimuli, there were three conditions that compared the effects of auditory feedback: TAG paired with edible, verbal praise paired with edible and edible alone. The participants were 3 males ranging in age 14-15. All were diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and attended a school for children with autism. Each participant was trained on a matching-to-sample task with 2 sets of arbitrary stimuli. This study was conducted with a multi-element design. Conditions were counterbalanced across participants and stimuli. Based on the results for all the participants the average rate of acquisition was more efficient in the verbal praise paired with an edible condition. TAG paired with an edible was the next most efficient treatment followed by the edible only condition. The results of the study indicate that using verbal praise paired with an edible and TAG paired with an edible are more efficient when training an acquisition task than using edible only.

Document Type

Master's Thesis

Rights Holder

Margaret M. Dickson


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