INDUCING VARIABILITY IN COMMUNICATIVE GESTURES USED BY SEVERELY RETARDED INDIVIDUALS

• Published in: Journal of applied behavior analysis Vol. 24; no. 2; pp. 379 - 386
• Main Authors: Duker, Pieter C., van Lent, Chretienne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 1991; Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; Adults; Body Language; Classroom Communication; Communication; Communication Skills; Education of Intellectually Disabled - methods; Female; gestural communication; Gestures; Humans; Junior High Schools; Language Development Disorders - psychology; Language Development Disorders - rehabilitation; Male; mentally retarded; Nonverbal Communication; Severe Mental Retardation; Stereotyped Behavior; Teacher Response; Training Methods; Verbal Behavior; Vocabulary; Vocabulary Development
• ISSN: 0021-8855; 1938-3703
• DOI: 10.1901/jaba.1991.24-379

Handicapped individuals who have been taught spontaneous gesture requests often use only a small part of their vocabulary. Procedures to recover the unused part of this vocabulary have not been documented. This study was designed to identify procedures for increasing the proportion of gestures used spontaneously. Six mentally handicapped individuals served as subjects. After a baseline phase during which spontaneous gesture requests were reinforced, consequences were withheld for high‐rate gesture requests. This led to an increase in different gesture requests. Although gesture requests did not return to baseline levels during a reversal condition, functional control was demonstrated by way of a multiple baseline across subjects. The absence of a reversal effect suggests enduring effects of the procedure.