Establishing Oral Motor Imitation Using Video Modeling
摘要
The purpose of the study was to teach oral motor imitation and to measure collateral effects on echoic responses and independent speech production. We taught nine different oral motor movements to three autistic preschoolers during the study. The intervention consisted of video modeling, the selfie screen on a tablet as a substitute for a mirror, and reinforcement for correct responses to facilitate acquisition of the target oral movements. Once mastery was achieved, we faded the video model and selfie screen, and responding was under the control of the live model only. All three participants mastered the nine different target oral motor movements. Notably, there was an increase in the accuracy of untargeted echoic responses following the intervention. Furthermore, all three participants showed varying levels of increase in independent speech sound production in the free-play setting. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of the behavioral processes that facilitate first-language acquisition.