Abstract
Palilalia, the delayed repetition of words or phrases, occurs frequently among individuals with autism and developmental disabilities. The current study used a combined multiple baseline and reversal design to investigate the effectiveness of presenting tacts as corrections for palilalia. During baseline, five preschoolers with autism emitted high rates of palilalia and low rates of mands and tacts during play and instructional activities. During treatment, when experimenters presented opportunities to echoically tact actions and objects following the emission of palilalia, its frequency decreased to low and stable levels and mands and tacts increased. Functional relationships between the tact corrections and emissions of palilalia, mands, and tacts were established during reversals to baseline and treatment conditions. Similar trends in responding were found for frequency of palilalia, mands, and tacts in non-treatment settings.
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This research was completed as part of the first author’s doctoral dissertation at Teachers College, Columbia University, under the supervision of the second author.
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Karmali, I., Greer, R.D., Nuzzolo-Gomez, R. et al. Reducing Palilalia by Presenting Tact Corrections to Young Children with Autism. Analysis Verbal Behav 21, 145–153 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393016
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03393016