Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2012

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

Eberly College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Psychology

Committee Chair

Claire St. Peter.

Abstract

Manding (requesting) is a vital component of successful language development and allows children to access reinforcers in their environment. When training mands, caregivers may not implement the training program as designed ("treatment integrity failures"). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of incorrect-item delivery (Experiment 1) and response-independent item delivery (Experiment 2) across four levels of treatment integrity (0%, 40%, 70%, and 100%) on mand acquisition. A total of six children (three in each experiment), who communicated vocally using full sentences and engaged in some independent manding participated in the study. During Experiment 1, two of the three participants acquired the mand fastest during 100% integrity. Delivery of the incorrect item was detrimental to mand acquisition, but the effects were idiosyncratic across the two participants. The third participant did not acquire any mands. During Experiment 2, all three participants acquired the mand fastest during the 100% integrity condition. All participants acquired the mand trained with 70% integrity. None of the participants acquired the mands trained with 40% and 0% integrity, suggesting that delivery of the item independent of responding was detrimental to acquisition. For mand training to be most effective, caregivers must implement mand training with high levels of integrity.

Download

Share

COinS