BABAT & B.F. Skinner Student Research Award

Lori Mastrogiacomo

Title: Teaching Caregivers to Facilitate Vocalizations of Infants at Risk for Autism

Abstract

Contingent responding to infant vocalizations is a promising intervention for increasing spontaneous vocalizations and echoics in young children. The purpose of the current study is to extend the work of Neimy et al. (2020) by examining the impact of contingent parentease (“babytalk”) speech, contingent vocal imitation, and noncontingent speech (a control condition) on rates of vocalization infants at risk for Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Three infants (ages 6-12 months) and their parents and caregivers (three per infant) will participate. Caregivers will be trained to implement each of the three strategies using Behavioral Skills Training (BST). A multiple baseline across caregivers (with an embedded alternating treatments design) will be used to evaluate effects on rate of infant vocalizations. Data on auxiliary variables (echoics, as well as infant and caregiver eye contact and smiles) will also be collected for further analysis. Results of this study may have implications for providing caregivers with simple yet effective teaching strategies to boost early language development in their children.

Keywords: Applied behavior analysis, autism spectrum disorder, infants at risk, vocalizations, echoic, parentease, contingent vocal imitation