Functional Language for a Severely Handicapped Child: A Case Study

Abstract

The purpose of this case study is to review the procedures and results of a comprehensive model–employing operant conditioning procedures with a non-verbal child. The model is comprehensive itself in that it provides step-by-step training procedures from the point of training imitation of simple sounds, then a labeling vocabulary, then verbs, and so on through a total of 49 steps. Approximately half of the model is devoted to teaching spontaneous, functional speech. Specific procedures for training by parents or parent-figures are included. The study is also comprehensive in that it covers four years of training with the same child and trainer. Most of this training program is based on an imitation paradigm coupled with a two-trainer modeling procedure. The contents of the functional language program includes six areas of emphasis: Persons and Things; Action with Persons and Things; Possession; Color; Size; and Relation. The individual training steps of this category are repeatedly interrelated in such a way that the acquisition of one particular skill is expanded and refined in subsequent steps. The last nineteen steps of the program deal solely with expansion of spontaneous speech and generalization to other parts of the child's environment. The results of this case study are all empirically based. The child's progress can clearly be traced from steps dealing with simple sound imitation and then on through the rest of the program. Data on generalization of training to probe sessions are also presented.