Effects of Mastery of Auditory Match-to-Sample Instruction on Echoics, Emergence of Advanced Listener Literacy, and Speaker as Own Listener Cusps by Elementary School Students with ASD and ADHD

I tested the effects of mastery of an advanced auditory match-to-sample (MTS) instruction on the emission of full echoic responses, and the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps. In two experiments, an advanced auditory MTS instruction was implemented, in which the auditory MTS Flash® instructional program displayed a computer screen containing one button at the top center of the screen and two buttons below it in the bottom corners of the screen. The top button produced the sample word or phrase, and the two buttons located below produced the exemplar and non-exemplar word or phrase. In the advanced auditory match-to-sample instruction, the participant mastered MTS for words or phrases. In Experiment 1, a counterbalanced delayed multiple probe across participants design was implemented to test the effects of mastery of an advanced auditory MTS instruction on the emergence of advanced listener literacy and Naming, and the emission of full echoic responses. In Experiment 2, a time lagged multiple probe across participants design was implemented to test the effects of mastery of the advanced auditory MTS instruction on the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps (i.e., Naming, say-do correspondence, and self-talk). In addition, Experiment 2 investigated the potential sources of the emergence of advanced listener literacy and speaker-as-own-listener cusps using the probe procedure to identify the degree of conditioned reinforcement for voices. Full echoic responses across all participants significantly improved as a function of the advanced auditory MTS instruction. In Experiment 1, two out of four participants achieved full Naming. In Experiment 2, one out of three participants achieved full Naming. Two participants' self-talk and say-do correspondences significantly increased. Mastery of the protocol also resulted in increased reinforcement for choosing to listen to recorded speech.