Claire L. Poulson

Generalized imitation in infants

Effects of modeling and contingent praise on infants motor response topographies were experimentally analyzed. Three 10-month-old male infants and their mothers participated in 20-min. experimental sessions two to four times a week for 2 to 7 months. During each session a mother presented her infant with 15 toys randomly selected from a pool of 45. The infant was allowed to play with each toy for 1 min. During treatment the mother modeled prescribed responses with each toy, and during 10 training trials per session, she praised her infant if he emitted topographically similar responses. Interspersed among training trials were five probe trials for which praise was seldom available. All three infants showed systematic increases in the targeted training and probe response topographies following the introduction of the modeling and praise treatment procedure. Thus, responding during probes demonstrated generalized imitation with infants, a new and developmentally important population.

Generalized Vocal Imitation in Infants.

Effects of modeling and response-contingent social praise on the vocal imitation of three 9- to 13-month-old infants were analyzed. Three infants and parents participated in 2 to 4 experimental sessions a week for 2 to 4 months. During each 20-min-long session, the parent presented vocal models for the infant to imitate. During the model-alone condition, no social praise was programmed for infant imitation. During the model-and-praise condition, social praise was provided by the parent for infant imitation on training trials, but not probe trials. All three infants showed systematic increases in matching during training trials following the introduction of the model-and-praise condition. Although matching during probe trials was not directly reinforced, probe-trial responding increased systematically with training-trial responding. Furthermore, non-matching infant vocalizations did not increase systematically with the introduction of the model-and-praise procedure. Together these findings provide a demonstration of generalized vocal imitation in infants, a population in which it had not previously been shown to occur.

Imitation in Infancy: A Critical Review

Publisher Summary Imitation plays an important role in the development of early socialization and language. The imitative behavior in infants and young children has been extensively studied from different theoretical perspectives. Cognitive researchers stress the operations of covert cognitive processes underlying imitation, and behavioral researchers emphasize observable and measurable events in the demonstration of functional relations between imitative behavior and environmental stimuli. In this chapter, imitation is generally defined according to Uzgiriss observation that “imitation is said to occur whenever a subject duplicates the behavior enacted by a model as a result of having observed the model.” This definition, although broad, underscore the potential of imitation as a mechanism for the acquisition of new behavior. This chapter investigates what is known about the origins of imitation in infancy. It provides a review of the literature to examine early conceptualizations of infant imitation, the developmental course of diverse imitative responses, variables affecting infant imitative performance, imitation and mother-infant interaction, procedures that evoke imitative responding in infants, the issue of neonatal imitation of nonvisible actions, and past and future trends in the study of infant imitation.

The infant vocal-conditioning literature: a theoretical and methodological critique.

Most studies of operant conditioning of infant vocalization do not fully use the experimental-analysis-of-behavior methodology that behavioral researchers have developed to study operant phenomena. This could be a contributing factor in their failure to correctly operationalize the definition of reinforcement, severely limiting the amount of information they can provide about operant learning in infants. Furthermore, single-subject-design studies may be added to supplement or replace group experimental designs in the study of infant vocal conditioning if we are to recognize the different learning processes that affect infant learning. Finally, single-subject experimental designs may be crucial to the development of an effective technology of early language intervention.

Acquisition and Generalization of Complex Empathetic Responses Among Children with Autism

Empathy can be defined as a social interaction skill that consists of four components: (1) a statement voiced in the (2) appropriate intonation, accompanied by a (3) facial expression and (4) gesture that correspond to the affect of another individual. A multiple-baseline across response categories experimental design was used to evaluate the effectiveness of a prompt sequence (video modeling, in vivo modeling, manual and verbal prompting) and reinforcement to increase the frequency of complex empathetic responding by four children with autism. The number of complex empathetic responses increased systematically with the successive introduction of the treatment package. Additionally, generalization was demonstrated to untaught stimuli and a novel adult. Responding maintained over time to varying degrees for all participants. The data illustrate that children with autism can be taught using modeling, prompting, and reinforcement to discriminate between categories of affective stimuli and differentially respond with complex empathetic responses.