(Charlop, Schreibman, & Tryon, 1983; Egel,

JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS

INCREASING AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S SPONTANEOUS VERBALIZATIONSOF AFFECTION: AN ASSESSMENT OF TIME DELAY AND

PEER MODELING PROCEDURES

MARJORIE H. CHARLOP AND MICHELE E. WALSH

CLAREMONT MCKENNA COLLEGE

We assessed the efficacy of time delay and peer modeling procedures in increasing autistic children'sspontaneous verbalizations of affection. Four autistic children were taught to spontaneously say "Ilike (love) you" in response to a hug from a familiar person and their mother. Generalization froma free play training setting to free play outdoors and at home was assessed. Ancillary social andaffection behaviors were also observed. Results indicated that the time delay was a quick andeffective procedure for all the children. Peer modeling was unsuccessful in teaching the targetbehavior.DESCRIPTORS: autism, speech, time delay

One of the most severe and persistent charac-teristics of autistic children is their marked deficitin social and affection behaviors. Their unrespon-sivity is seen in extreme withdrawal, isolated self-stimulatory behavior, inappropriate affect, and ab-sent or delayed social smile (Rutter, 1978). Parentsreport great despair over their child's failure toexpress any affection towards them. The children'sapparent disinterest in others discourages parents,peers, and teachers from attempting to interact withthem, further lessening opportunities for learning(Lovaas, Koegel, Simmons, & Long, 1973). Ad-ditionally, autistic children generally appear unre-sponsive to verbal expression of affection. The lackof spontaneity in speech (Charlop, Schreibman, &Thibodeau, 1985) makes it unlikely that a verbalautistic child would initiate any unpromptedexpressions of affection. Thus, it is probably dueto such unresponsivity and lack of spontaneity thatresearchers to date have not addressed the acqui-sition of appropriate spontaneous expressions ofaffection by autistic children.

Our study was designed to assess the efficacy oftwo procedures in increasing autistic children's af-fection behavior. Specifically, a time delay proce-dure (Charlop et al., 1985; Halle, Marshall, &Spradlin, 1979) and a peer modeling procedure

Reprints can be obtained from Marjorie H. Charlop, De-partment of Psychology, Claremont McKenna College,Claremont, California 9171 1.

(Charlop, Schreibman, & Tryon, 1983; Egel,Richman, & Koegel, 1981) were used in an at-tempt to teach the children to spontaneously vo-calize "I like you" or "I love you" in response toa hug by a familiar person or their mother, re-spectively. We employed the definition of spon-taneity used in Charlop et al. (1985): "a verbalresponse to a nonverbal discriminative stimulus inthe absence of a verbal discriminative stimulus."In addition, we assessed generalization of the af-fection behavior across settings and people, andobserved the procedures' effect on ancillary socialbehaviors.

METHOD

SubjectsFour autistic boys who were diagnosed accord-

ing to the National Society for Autistic Children'scriteria (Ritvo & Freeman, 1978) participated inthis study. Child 1 was 6 years old with a mentalage of 4 years, 4 months. Mental ages for all thechildren were derived from the Leiter Scale. Child1 displayed appropriate receptive and expressivespeech but also exhibited immediate and delayedecholalia and inappropriate intonation. He en-gaged in self-stimulatory behavior such as hand-flapping and toe-walking, rarely maintained eyecontact with others, and did not initiate conver-sations. He was previously taught to give hugs

307

19861199,307-314 NUMBER 3 (FAu 1986)

MARJORIE H. CHARLOP and MICHELE E. WALSH

upon request, but they were generally accompaniedby self-stimulatory behaviors. He rarely exhibiteda social smile.

Child 2 was 8 years 9 months old with a mentalage of 3 years, 7 months. He displayed some ap-propriate receptive and expressive speech, but mostof it was echolalic. He engaged in gazing and handposturing, and numerous off-task behaviors in-cluding tantrums, leaving his seat, and reachingfor objects. He exhibited irrational fears of certainobjects and extreme attachment to others. He pre-ferred to play alone and frequently stiffened uponcontact. When asked to give a hug, he generallyresponded with a brief, weak effort. He would onlyoccasionally exhibit social smiles, and would rarelymake eye contact.

Child 3 was 7 years 11 months old, with amental age of 6 years 2 months. He displayedextensive expressive, receptive, and spontaneousspeech, which primarily consisted of asking ques-tions (e.g., "What's this called? What's it for?").He exhibited articulation problems. He also en-gaged in grimacing, inappropriate laughter, andpreoccupation with objects. He rarely made eyecontact, played with others, or initiated hugs.

Child 4 was 8 years 6 months old with a mentalage of 4 years. He exhibited limited expressive andreceptive language, poor intonation and articula-tion, and little spontaneous speech. He engaged inself-stimulatory behaviors such as hand-flapping,grimacing, and inappropriate laughter. He occa-sionally exhibited aggressive behaviors such as spit-ting and pinching. When requested to give a hug,he would briefly place one or both arms limplyaround the other person. He preferred to be alone,exhibited poor eye contact, and rarely smiled.

Setting and MaterialsObservations were made in three conditions:1. Free Play Indoors (Training Setting): The

child was taken into a 2.9 m X 4.3 m play roomcontaining furniture (e.g., large chairs, coffee table,telephone) and various toys. The experimenter at-tempted to engage the child in play by makingrequests and offering toys (e.g., "Would you throwme the ball?").

2. Free Play Outdoors: The child was taken toa grassy lawn area where a different set of toys wasavailable. The experimenter again tried to involvethe child in play. The experimenter was a familiarperson to the child, someone who had providedbehavior modification sessions as well as free playsessions for over a year. In addition, the experi-menter had previously engaged the child in severalsocial activities such as taking walks, requestinghugs, giving tickles, and participating in holidayparties for the children. Thus, it was deemed ap-propriate that the experimenter (the second au-thor) be the recipient of the target response of "Ilike you."

3. Free Play at Home: This setting consisted ofthe typical play area for the child (e.g., the child'sroom, the den). Toys available for the child werechosen by his mother. The mother served as theexperimenter and attempted to engage the child inplay. If training was necessary in this setting, themother was taught, through modeling and feed-back, both how to implement the time delay pro-cedure and how to record the data.

DesignA multiple baseline across subjects and settings

was used. Pretests and probes were implementedin the training and generalization settings. Twochildren were randomly chosen to serve as modelsand two served as learners. Generalization probeswere presented from 3 days to 2 weeks after thecompletion of training. If generalization was notdemonstrated, the behavior was subsequentlytrained.Up to three modeling sessions were provided

for the learners. A probe was conducted after eachsession to ascertain whether observational learninghad occurred. If learning had occurred, general-ization probes were conducted. If learning was notdemonstrated, the learner participated in time de-lay training sessions in the free play indoors con-dition.

Time DelayBaseline. This condition was established to de-

termine whether the child would spontaneously

308

AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S AFFECTION RESPONSES

emit the "I like (love) you" target vocalizationbefore intervention. In each of the free play situ-ations, the experimenter (or mother) would request"Give me a hug." If the child did not move withinapproximately 10 s to hug the experimenter, shewould again request, "Give me a hug" and pro-vide the necessary physical prompt of approachingthe child and placing his arms around her neck.After the hug, the experimenter would smile and,maintaining eye contact and the child in her arms,prompt by saying "I like you." A correct responsewould have been for the child to say "I like (love)you" after the hug, but before the experimenter(mother) vocalized. Had this ever occurred, itwould have been reinforced with the child's pre-ferred food reinforcer and with social reinforcers ofa smile and praise (e.g., "What a good boy," "Ilike you, too"). Imitations of the experimenter'svocalization would have also been reinforced butnot considered a correct response. The "Give mea hug" request was presented five times per ses-sion, approximately once per minute. After thebaseline sessions had been conducted and none ofthe children had spontaneously vocalized "I like(love) you," Child 1 and Child 3 were randomlychosen and presented with the time delay proce-dure.

Training. In the first time delay session, thetherapist again requested "Give me a hug." Asthe hug was completed, the experimenter lookedthe child in the eye, still maintaining the child inher arms, delayed 2 s, and modeled the response"I like you." If the child responded during the 2-sdelay, or if he imitated the response, that behaviorwas reinforced with his preferred food and socialreinforcers ("I like you, too"). If the child did notrespond, the child and experimenter merely re-sumed playing until the next trial (approximately1 min later). The delay was increased by 2-s in-crements when the child made two consecutivecorrect responses or imitations at the current delay.Only five trials per play session were presentedbecause it would seem unnatural to request morehugs. Training was completed when the childspontaneously vocalized "I like (love) you" within10 s following a hug in two consecutive sessions

on at least four of the five trials in the session.Generalization probes were then conducted.

Generalization ProbesOutdoor free play. The purpose of this probe

was to assess generalization across settings. Theexperimenter requested "Give me a hug" fivetimes, approximately once per minute, during the5-min probe. A correct response was marked if thechild said "I like you" within 10 s following thehug. Reinforcers were not provided contingent uponcorrect responses; rather, four or five reinforcerswere provided for "nice playing" throughout thesession so that the child did not cease to respondcompletely. Generalization was said to have oc-curred if the child made four correct responses dur-ing the five trials in the session. If generalizationdid not occur, the child was taught the responseusing the time delay procedure.Home free play. This probe was designed to

assess generalization across persons and settings andwas conducted in the same manner as describedabove with the mother as the experimenter. If gen-eralization did not occur, the mother used the timedelay procedure to teach the behavior. If the childsaid "I like you," the behavior was said to havegeneralized. However, mothers were instructed torespond with "I love you, too" in order to en-courage this response with them.

Peer ModelingChild 1 and Child 3 served as peer models for

Child 2 and Child 4, respectively, only after theyreached criterion in the time delay procedure. Inthe modeling condition, both children (model andlearner) entered the free play room with the ex-perimenter. Approximately once per minute (fivetimes in the 5-min probe), the learner was in-structed to "Look, pay attention." He was physi-cally prompted to face the model if necessary. Thepeer model was requested by the experimenter to"Give me a hug." His correct "I like you" re-sponse was reinforced with a snack and social rein-forcers (e.g., "I like you, too" "What a nice boy").The learner was then presented with the probe forobservational learning. Acquisition of the behavior

309


was said to have occurred if the learner respondedwith the "I like you" vocalization within 10 sfollowing a requested hug in four of the five probetrials. If the behavior was acquired, generalizationprobes were conducted. If the behavior was notacquired following the first presentation to themodel, a second and third presentation conditionand subsequent probes were conducted. If the be-havior was not acquired following the third pre-sentation, the learner was trained using the timedelay procedure.

Ancillary BehaviorsFor each session (induding baseline) in the in-

door and outdoor free play settings, observationswere taken of other spontaneous affection and so-cial behaviors to assess any positive side effects.The ancillary behaviors were: approach/touch(child initiated touch or child moved within 1 footof experimenter or other child), social smile (within1 foot and face-to-face with experimenter or child,or while engaged in a hug), eye contact (whilewithin 5 feet of experimenter or child and for atleast 1 s), spontaneous hug/kiss, spontaneous hel-lo/goodbye verbalization, and spontaneous I like/love you verbalization. Observations were made bytwo trained staff who were naive to the purpose ofthe study. A continuous, 10-s, partial interval re-cording procedure was used. Observations were notmade in the home.

ReliabilityFor correct and incorrect trials, interrater reli-

ability was calculated by dividing the total numberof agreements between the experimenter and theother observer by the number of agreements plusdisagreements and multiplying by 100. Interraterreliability was calculated for 75% of sessions andwas 100% for trial response. Interrater reliabilityfor ancillary behaviors was calculated for occur-rences and nonoccurrences in the same manner.Interrater reliability for ancillary behaviors wasmeasured for 75% of sessions with overall reli-ability (occurrences and nonoccurrences) as follows:approach/touch, 95%; spontaneous hug/kiss,

100%; spontaneous "hello/goodbye," 100%;spontaneous "I like/love," 100%; social smile,92%; and eye contact, 90%. Interrater reliabilitywas not measured in the home to avoid obtrusive-ness.

Social ValidationA questionnaire was distributed to six parents

(four mothers and two fathers) and five siblingsbefore and after the study to assess family mem-bers' perceptions. The questionnaire was modifiedfrom a social validation survey given to teachersby Schreibman, Runco, Mills, and Koegel (1982),and is available from the first author.

RESULTS

The results of the time delay and modeling pro-cedures are presented in Figure 1. During baseline,no correct responses were made by any of the chil-dren, regardless of the number of trials or of thecondition (i.e., free play indoors, free play out-doors, free play at home) presented.

With the introduction of the time delay con-dition, Child 1 and Child 3 quickly increased theirresponding to the criterion level of at least fourspontaneous responses in two consecutive sessionsof five trials each. Child 1 was presented with twoadditional treatment sessions due to a 4-week de-lay between the time that criterion was met andthe time that he was available to serve as a peermodel for Child 2. The additional sessions servedto ensure that he had retained the behavior andwould successfully model it. These sessions areplotted on Figure 1 as the last indoor data pointin time delay and the first indoor data point afterthe outdoors probe.

The behavior of Child 1 and Child 3 general-ized across settings to the free play outdoors probe.Child 3 also generalized across settings and personsin the free play at home generalization probe. Afterhis mother responded with "I love you, too" fol-lowing his spontaneous verbalization of "I likeyou," Child 3 said "I love you" for the remainingtrials. Child I's performance, however, failed to

310


Chi

5

4

3

2

c 1

oc iLJ 5

CL

o

Z0%o

CD 2

_j 1

u 0a)

5

0

4

a,

E 3

0

Chli

5

4

3

2

0

ild 1 Baseline

0 000 0

id 2

+ Basel i.

0 oo

ceo

Time Delay* 0

Le -

I

III

I

I

0 0 0 0 0 0 0

0

IFa

0

I

c

0

a

Time Delay At Home

Key:o Indoors* OutdoorsO Home

Time Delay Time DelayAt Home

II I- I II I II I

ld 3 Time Delay

-o o *o 000

Bdselase]iDe Time Delay0* 00 00 00* 0 0 0 1@0 00* * *.

I O o o oO *-,oo o l00~~~~~~~~~ _ -....II &****

DaysFigure 1. Performance during baseline, time delay, modeling, and probe sessions for all children.

generalize to the home setting. The time delayintervention was thus implemented in the free playat home setting and Child 1 subsequently met

criterion.

Neither Child 2 nor Child 4 learned the behav-ior by observation, as indicated in the three mod-eling probes. With the implementation of the timedelay procedure, both children met criterion. Ad-

311

-

-

)r.


Child 1 Baseli ne Time Delay100

50.

-~~~5 a--I,

Child 2i10 Baseline L- -

II *8~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~F~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~0_ __

3Bseline

0- - A

4BaseliBe

Time Delay At Home

Key:o Eye Contact* Social Smile* Approach/Touch

Time DelaVAt Home

Figure 2. Ancillary behaviors of all children during baseline, time delay, modeling, and probe sessions.

ditionally, their performance generalized to the free criterion for Child 2. Although Child 4's mother

play outdoors setting, but not to the free play at reported that he acquired the response, she lost the

home setting. A time delay introduced at home time delay training data and thus it does not ap-increased the frequency of correct responding to pear on the graph.

501

L.a)

40)L.0)0.

50

0 ;AChild10-

312


Table 1Mean Responses to Social Validation Questionnaire by

Parents and Siblings Before and After Intervention

Mean response

Parents' questions Before After

2.332.335.675.833.175.673.333.362.502.502.675.304.504.303.503.503.675.675.677.00

Initiate hugs?Initiate hugs with sibs?Repetitive behavior?Comply?Comply with sibs?Stiffen on contact?Initiate greeting?Wandering attention?Tantrum?Touching?Eye contact?Social smile?Smile at sibs?Unaware of surroundings?Conversation?Interest in you?Interest in sibs?Loves you?*Loves sibs?*You love?

Siblings' questionsHug you first?Hug parents first?Hug back?Do what asked?Say Hi first?Tantrum?Touch?Eye contact?Smile?Talk to you?Likes you?*You like?

Parentsscale:

*scale:Siblings

scale:scale:

2.002.602.802.402.203.802.403.002.804.004.404.20

4.604.005.206.203.603.604.403.002.404.204.405.304.604.304.605.504.606.757.007.00

4.254.754.753.753.502.504.504.004.755.004.755.00

1 = never 7 = very frequently1 = very little 7 = very much

I = never 5 = a whole bunch1 = a little bit 5 = all the time

Ancillary BehaviorsOccurrences of ancillary behaviors are shown in

Figure 2. Spontaneous I like/love responses, hel-lo/goodbye responses, and hug/kiss responses were

not plotted because they did not occur. In general,the most striking finding was that for eye contact,

which occurred more often during modeling con-

ditions for Children 1, 2, and 4 (although data is

limited for Child 4) than during baseline or timedelay conditions. Child 3 initially displayed moreeye contact during time delay, but this frequencyof occurrence dropped rapidly to a level similar tothat of his modeling sessions.

Social ValidationThe means of the parents' and siblings' re-

sponses to the social validation questionnaire aregiven in Table 1. Parents and siblings perceivedthe children to be more social and lovable follow-ing intervention. Additionally, they reported a de-crease in inappropriate behaviors and an increasein appropriate behaviors.

DISCUSSION

This study demonstrated the efficacy of a timedelay procedure in increasing four autistic chil-dren's spontaneous verbalizations of affection. Thetarget behavior generalized across settings (free playoutdoors) and for one child, across persons andsettings (free play at home). When necessary, thechildren's mothers were successful in using the timedelay procedure with their children to teach thetarget behavior in the home.

Peer modeling was not effective in teaching thetarget response. The free play indoors condition,in which the modeling was conducted, was by de-sign unstructured to provide an environment sim-ilar to that which the child is likely to encounter.It is possible that the children took advantage ofthe loosely structured environment and thus de-creased their attention to the model. Frequently,the experimenter had to physically restrain thelearner from self-stimulating. Our findings are con-sistent with the suggestion that the success of mod-eling may be dependent on a number of factors,induding the amount of self-stimulation the childdisplays and the structure of the modeling envi-ronment (Charlop et al., 1983; Egel et al., 1981).Thus, it may not be modeling per se but the lackof stimulus control over the learner's behavior thatmay have interfered with learning through obser-vation in our study. The ancillary data collected inthis study support the idea that a modeling situ-

313

314 MARJORIE H. CHARLOP and MICHELE E. WALSH

ation may be conducive to increasing social andaffection behaviors. Thus, continued research withslightly more structured settings seems worthy ofattention.

Although three of the four children's behaviordid not initially generalize to the home environ-ment, it is important to note that training imple-mented by their mothers was successful. Addition-ally, Child 3's mother reported several instances ofthe spontaneous "I love you" phrase in other ap-propriate situations such as when being tucked intobed or when hugged after returning from school.Child 2's mother reported that after training athome, his behavior also generalized across familymembers and settings (e.g., when hugged by hisfather and siblings at home, when hugged by hisfather in a market). Importantly, the children re-sponded with "I like you" when hugged by theexperimenter and with some other, but not all,familiar persons. But when hugged by less familiarpersons (e.g., new staff members), they did notrespond with the target response at all. Thus, thechildren appeared to have made the appropriatediscrimination with whom to engage in the re-sponse. Postexperiment probes demonstrated thisfor Children 1, 2, and 3 (Child 4 was unavailablefor these sessions). Probe data were recorded bytwo observers with 100% reliability. Probes con-sisted of having various persons request "Give mea hug" with the child's response recorded ("I like(love) you") in a variety of different settings (office,dassroom, lounge). The results of this probe in-dicated that the children responded to certain per-sons with "I love you," others with "I like you,"and others not at all. Child 1, who said "I loveyou" to a nonfamily member, had previously in-dicated a preference for this person (e.g., requestedto work with this person, brought art projects fromschool to this person).

All of the parents expressed concern prior to thestudy about their child's lack of social and affectionbehaviors. The social validation data reflect a changein how the family members perceive the autistic

youngster as measured by their self-reports. Im-portantly, parents and siblings reported that theyfelt that the autistic child loved (liked) them moreafter the intervention than before. This is note-worthy because parents of autistic children contin-ually report the hurt and frustration of their chil-dren's indifference towards them. The parentsseemed encouraged by their children's social pro-gress and mentioned spending more time interact-ing with them. It seems feasible that this attentionmay, in turn, lead the child to respond even moresocially.

REFERENCES

Charlop, M. H., Schreibman, L., & Thibodeau, M. G.(1985). Increasing spontaneous verbal responding inautistic children using a time delay procedure. Journalof Applied Behavior Analysis, 18, 155-166.

Charlop, M. H., Schreibman, L., & Tryon, A. S. (1983).Learning through observation: The effects of peer mod-eling on acquisition and generalization in autistic chil-dren. Journal ofAbnormal Child Psychology, 11, 355-366.

Egel, A. L., Richman, G. S., & Koegel, R. L. (1981).Normal peer models and autistic children's learning.Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 14, 3-12.

Halle, J. W., Marshall, A. M., & Spradlin, J. E. (1979).Time delay: A technique to increase language use andfacilitate generalization in retarded children. Journal ofApplied Behavior Analysis, 12, 431-439.

Lovaas, 0. I., Koegel, R., Simmons, J. Q., & Long, J. S.(1973). Some generalization and follow-up measureson autistic children in behavior therapy. Journal ofAp-plied Behavior Analysis, 6, 131-166.

Ritvo, E. R., & Freeman, B. J. (1978). National'Societyfor Autistic Children definition of the syndrome of au-tism. Journal ofAutism and Childhood Schizophrenia,8, 162-167.

Rutter, M. (1978). Diagnosis and definition of childhoodautism. Journal of Autism and Childhood Schizophre-nia, 8, 139-161.

Schreibman, L., Runco, M. A., Mills, J. I., & Koegel, R. L.(1982). Teachers' judgments of improvements in au-tistic children in behavior therapy: A social validation.In Koegel, R. L., Rincover, A., & Egel, A. L. (Eds.),Educating and understanding autistic children (pp.78-87). San Diego: College Hill Press.

Received August 26, 1985Final acceptance May 13, 1986

Documents

(Charlop, Schreibman, & Tryon, 1983; Egel,