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Biomedical subjects

J Reichle

Publications and source records attributed to J Reichle.

13 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1999

Relation between heart rate and problem behaviors.

A new methodological approach for understanding self-injury, aggression, and property destruction exhibited by individuals with severe developmental disabilities was evaluated in this descriptive study. Measures of heart-rate changes before, during, and after episodes of problem behavior were obtained in real time. Unique patterns of heart rate and problem behavior were documented for each participant. Heart rate, identified as an indicator of negative arousal, was reliably associated with higher scores of perceived distress. These results indicate that further research is needed to examine the link between problem behavior and physiology. The study also suggests that physiological measurement can be included in the functional assessment process to further our understanding of the mechanisms underlying problem behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed1996

Variant and invariant high-probability requests: increasing appropriate behaviors in children with emotional-behavioral disorders.

This study examined the effects of variant versus invariant high-probability (high-p) request sequences on the performance of requests to initiate a social bid by young children with emotional-behavioral disorders. In the initial phases of the investigation, a multiple baseline design showed that the delivery of invariant sequences (i.e., high-p requests delivered in the same sequence) produced initial increases in compliance to requests to initiate a social bid to a peer. However, increases were not maintained across the invariant condition. The delivery of variant high-p sequences produced increases in compliance to requests to initiate social bids that were maintained across the variant condition. In a follow-up condition, the number of requests within the pool of the variant and invariant high-p requests were controlled. Results of the follow-up condition replicated those found in the initial condition. Implications for applied use and future research are discussed.

Child Behavior Disorders↗
PubMed1993

Communication intervention for persons with severe and profound disabilities.

Traditionally, communication interventionists focused on teaching a beginning repertoire of communicative behavior, once learners with severe to profound disabilities had emitted intentional behavior. Increasingly, interventionists are recognizing that valuable opportunities may be lost if intervention does not begin at an earlier point. In part, intervention strategies at increasingly earlier points have resulted from a prevailing change from semantically-focused intervention logic to pragmatic, interaction-focused intervention logic. At the same time that intervention content has increasingly focused on pragmatics, there has been a wealth of information addressing the social functions served by repertoires of simple idiosyncratic (as well as socially unacceptable) behavior. The increasing availability of augmentative and alternative communicative options has provided an extensive array of motorically simple strategies to exert significant control and influence over one's environment. We have long since passed the need to demonstrate that persons with severe disabilities can be taught a repertoire of communicative functions. However, we have not been as successful in demonstrating that the communicative behavior taught is well maintained solely in the presence of natural maintaining contingencies. Nor have we adequately demonstrated that established repertoires are sufficiently generalized. Most recently, interventionists have begun to focus on more efficient strategies to use in the selection of the most critical teaching instances to teach a new communicative response. Additionally, interventionists are considering response efficiency as an important variable in determining the likelihood that a learner will choose to emit members of his or her communicative repertoire. There appears to be a consensus among those who currently serve individuals with severe disabilities that inclusion represents an attainable objective for students with even the most severe disabilities. Unfortunately, it is not clear that either special or regular educators are being adequately prepared to accomplish included placements. There remains a significant need to recognize those aspects of best practice which must be further explored in regular education settings. What once were considered best practice methods may not meet the test of social validity and be considered best practices in regular classrooms. The vast majority of intervention research has selected a fairly narrow communicative form or function to teach. Increasingly, information on maintenance and generalization is considered. However, often the periods sampled postacquisition are very modest. Among the plethora of available communication intervention curricula, there are virtually none that have taken a learner from a point of engaging in no intentional communicative behavior to the establishment of an effusive repertoire of communicative functions and corresponding vocabulary.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

Adolescent↗
PubMed1990

"Spontaneous" transfer of stimulus control from tact to mand contingencies.

An important issue in teaching verbal behavior to persons with severe handicaps is the transfer of stimulus control from tact (e.g., naming) to mand (e.g., requesting) relationships. Previous research has shown that topographies taught as tacts frequently fail to appear as mands unless transfer between these two response classes is explicitly programmed. Procedures promoting this transfer would provide a necessary instructional tool. Transfer from tact to mand contingencies was investigated in two adults with severe mental retardation. Correct pointing responses to line drawing symbols depicting the utensils required to access previously requested food (beverage) items were assessed prior to and following tact intervention. Mands for two of three utensils emerged following tact intervention. The results suggest transfer from tact variables to the conditioned establishing operation may be facilitated by the prior development of a minimal mand repertoire.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Developing mand and tact repertoires in persons with severe developmental disabilities using graphic symbols.

An important educational objective for many persons with developmental disabilities is the acquisition of verbal operants such as the mand (e.g., requesting) and tact (e.g., labeling). Mands and tacts have been described as separate response classes and several studies support this description. Consequently, an important applied issue involves implementing procedures to develop both tact and mand repertoires. The present study investigated procedures for developing mands and tacts in three learners with severe disabilities. Learners were first taught to tact, then mand food/beverage items and the utensils required to access those items by pointing to line drawings depicting the items. The results suggest that responses acquired as tacts do not readily occur as mands. "Spontaneous" manding was developed through a transfer of stimulus control procedure which brought mands under the control of conditioned establishing operations. Substantial transfer to untrained objects and transfer across response classes were frequently noted after both tact and mand interventions had occurred for some items. Variables facilitating these generalized effects are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Transparency and recall of symbols among intellectually handicapped adults.

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the transparency and recall of symbols representing three parts of speech (nouns, verbs, descriptors) from three different graphic symbol systems (Blissymbols, Picture Communication System, and Picsyms) among adults with intellectual handicaps. Results suggested that the Picture Communication System (PCS) and Picsyms were more transparent and easier to learn than Blissymbols. Subjects correctly identified significantly fewer Blissymbols representing nouns than either PCS or Picsyms representing nouns. In early stages of recall for nouns, PCS and Picsyms were significantly easier to recall than Blissymbols. Implications of the data for symbol system selection use for persons with severe speech impairments are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1987

The intelligibility of synthesized speech: ECHO II versus VOTRAX.

The intelligibility of two speech synthesizers [ECHO II (Street Electronics, 1982) and VOTRAX (VOTRAX Division, 1981)] was compared to the intelligibility of natural speech in each of three different contextual conditions: (a) single words, (b) "low-probability sentences" in which the last word could not be predicted from preceding context, and (c) "high-probability sentences" in which the last word could be predicted from preceding context. Additionally, the effect of practice on performance in each condition was examined. Natural speech was more intelligible than either type of synthesized speech regardless of word/sentence condition. In both sentence conditions, VOTRAX speech was significantly more intelligible than ECHO II speech. No practice effect was observed for VOTRAX, while an ascending linear trend occurred for ECHO II. Implications for the use of inexpensive speech synthesis units as components of augmentative communication aids for persons with severe speech and/or language impairments are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed1986

The topical relationship among adjacent utterances in productively delayed children's language addressed to their mothers.

Topic continuing and nontopic continuing utterances produced by three productively language-disordered preschoolers were examined. All children were intellectually, normal, exhibited multiple articulation errors, and produced utterances characteristic of children in Brown Stage I. Each child and mother participated in a videotaped 40-min free play activity. Communicative behavior emitted by mothers and children was transcribed using procedures described by Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood (1976). Subsequently, all intelligible child utterances produced adjacent to a maternal utterance were coded as imitative (maintained topic but added no new information), contingent (maintained topic and added new information), and noncontingent (changed topic). Results suggested that these productively disordered children produced a proportion of adjacent utterances comparable to proportions previously reported for children with normal production language skills (Bloom, Rocissano, and Hood, 1976). Further analysis suggested that these productively delayed children relied on an imitation strategy to continue conversational exchanges. Results are discussed in terms of intervention procedures suitable for children displaying conversational deficits, particularly the impact of phonological delay on conversational exchanges.

Child↗
PubMed1985

Matching prosodic and sound features: performance of Down's syndrome preschoolers.

Eight Down's Syndrome children between the ages of 2.2 and 3.75 yr (X = 2.73) participated in a study designed to determine if children with intellectual and language delay would show any consistent patterns in their imitations of adult vocalizations that were systematically varied in pitch, duration, and loudness. This performance was compared with the learner's proficiency in imitating speech sounds. Results yielded no overall relationship between learners' performance in the prosodic task and performance in the task using speech sounds as stimuli. All children matched at least some of the prosodic features examined. However, no particular prosodic features appeared more likely than others to be imitated. Results are discussed in terms of intersubject variability and the possible use of prosodic features as imitative stimuli in the early components of a communication interaction strategy.

Down Syndrome↗
PubMed1980

Language comprehension in sensorimotor stages V and VI.

A cross-sectional study of language comprehension in relation to cognitive functioning in 48 to 10-to-21 month old children, 4 at each month of age, revealed significant correlations between comprehension and five sensorimotor subscales. Age, however, was the only significant predictor in multiple regression analyses adding either age or sensorimotor subscale in second. In specific instances in which sensorimotor tasks tapped hypothetical prerequisites to specific language comprehension items, the two domains corresponded closely; but the cognitive domain was not always the first to be passed. Comprehension items were ordered from easy to hard as follows: 1) understanding single words for present people or objects; 2) for actions; 3) for absent people or objects; 4) understanding two words for the semantic relations possessor-posession, action-object, and agent-action; 5) understanding three words for agent-action-object. Implications for the Cognition Hypothesis are discussed.

Age Factors↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Conditional use of a request for assistance.

PURPOSE: To establish the conditional use of requests for assistance as an alternative to escape maintained challenging behaviour. METHOD: The study involved a 12-year-old boy with a behaviour disorder. Experiment 1 involved the implementation of a reversal design comparing the learner's performance during "easy" and "difficult" addition problems. Experiment 2 involved the implementation of a quasi-experimental design to establish the conditional use of requests for assistance. RESULTS: Conditional use of requests for assistance successfully competed with escape maintained challenging behaviour. CONCLUSIONS: Our results suggest that for a newly acquired response to be displayed conditionally, two events must occur. First, the individual must learn the skill that has been associated with requests for assistance. Secondly, the contingencies must be such that reinforcement value is greater for an independent response than for a response that involves a request for assistance.

Behavior Therapy↗