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Control of echolalic speech in psychotic children

Control of echolalic speech in psychotic children Immediate echolalia, a common language disorder in psychotic children, was studied in a series of replicated single-subject designs across six schizophrenic and five normal children. In Experiment 1, each child was presented with several questions and commands, some of which set the occasion for specific, appropriate responses and some of which did not. The former were referred to as discriminative stimuli and the latter, as neutral stimuli. The psychotic children tended to echo the neutral stimuli while responding appropriately to the discriminative stimuli; the normal children, in contrast, typically echoed neither type of stimulus. In Experiment 2, three psychotic children were taught appropriate responses to each of several neutral stimuli. Following this training, the children generally responded appropriately to these stimuli without echoing. A plausible interpretation of these results is that the neutral stimuli were initially incomprehensible or meaningless to the children (whereas the discriminative stimuli were comprehensible or meaningful) and that verbal incomprehensibility may be one important determinant of immediate echolalia. Finally, the results are noteworthy in that they isolate a sufficient treatment variable (i.e., the reinforcement of alternative, nonecholalic responses) for eliminating instances of this language anomaly. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology Springer Journals

Control of echolalic speech in psychotic children

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References (19)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright
Subject
Psychology; Child and School Psychology; Neurosciences; Public Health
ISSN
0091-0627
eISSN
1573-2835
DOI
10.1007/BF00917420
Publisher site
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Abstract

Immediate echolalia, a common language disorder in psychotic children, was studied in a series of replicated single-subject designs across six schizophrenic and five normal children. In Experiment 1, each child was presented with several questions and commands, some of which set the occasion for specific, appropriate responses and some of which did not. The former were referred to as discriminative stimuli and the latter, as neutral stimuli. The psychotic children tended to echo the neutral stimuli while responding appropriately to the discriminative stimuli; the normal children, in contrast, typically echoed neither type of stimulus. In Experiment 2, three psychotic children were taught appropriate responses to each of several neutral stimuli. Following this training, the children generally responded appropriately to these stimuli without echoing. A plausible interpretation of these results is that the neutral stimuli were initially incomprehensible or meaningless to the children (whereas the discriminative stimuli were comprehensible or meaningful) and that verbal incomprehensibility may be one important determinant of immediate echolalia. Finally, the results are noteworthy in that they isolate a sufficient treatment variable (i.e., the reinforcement of alternative, nonecholalic responses) for eliminating instances of this language anomaly.

Journal

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology – Springer Journals

Published: Dec 16, 2004

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