Dissertation Defenses

Doctoral Dissertation Announcement

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Candidate: Breanne K. Hartley

Degree of: Doctor of Philosophy

Department: Psychology

Title: A Molecular Analysis of Training with Multiple versus Single Manipulations to Establish a Generalized Manipulative Imitation Repertoire

Committee:
Dr. Richard Malott, Chair
Dr. Ron Van Houten
Dr. Alan Poling
Dr. Steven Ragotzy

Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009 11:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
2734 Wood Hall

Abstract:
This study evaluates the necessity of training multiple versus single manipulative-imitations per object in order to establish generalized manipulative-imitation. Training took place in Croyden Avenue School’s Early Childhood Developmental Delay pre-school classroom in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Two groups of three children each were trained to imitate in order to determine the most appropriate number of manipulations required (per object) to establish a generalized manipulative-imitation repertoire. Three children received single-manipulations training, and three children received multiple-manipulations training. It was anticipated that the multiple-manipulations training group would acquire a greater amount of generalized manipulative-imitation because the training required that the children discriminate between at least two different manipulations for each trained object, therefore, ensuring that the children’s responding would be under imitative stimulus control rather than just object stimulus control.
The manipulative-imitation training resulted in the successful training of six imitative manipulations for each child, in both groups. Additionally, all children demonstrated at least some generalized manipulative-imitation. The children who received multiple manipulative-imitation training demonstrated more generalized manipulative-imitation than those in the single-manipulations training group. Furthermore, manipulative-imitation training resulted in some generalized physical-imitation with all children and even some generalized vocal-imitation with the three multiple-manipulations children.