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An investigation of the effects of a parent delivered stimulus-stimulus pairing intervention on vocalizations of two children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

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Abstract

Communication deficits in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) can manifest in a myriad of lifelong social and educational challenges. Many children with ASD fail to learn vocal verbal behavior and may require intensive individualized intervention to learn early verbal operants. The current research aimed to evaluate the effects of a parent delivered stimulus-stimulus pairing (SSP) procedure on target vocalizations of two young children with ASD who did not present with vocal verbal behavior. Results indicated the intervention was successful in increasing the frequency of the target vocalizations for both participants. Social validity results indicated that parents were satisfied with the intervention and their own implementation of these procedures. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for parent delivered interventions.

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Correspondence to Jennifer Holloway.

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The authors declare that we have no conflict of interest. There are no potential conflicts of interest pertaining to this research. The authors confirm there are no relationships or interests that had a direct or potential influence or impart bias on this work.

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All procedures performed in this research were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Barry, L., Holloway, J. & Gunning, C. An investigation of the effects of a parent delivered stimulus-stimulus pairing intervention on vocalizations of two children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Analysis Verbal Behav 35, 57–73 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-018-0094-1

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