Abstract:
The purpose of this study was to teach three individuals with multiple profound disabilities to mand for a variety of stimuli using a simple voice communication output aid (VOCA). A single-stimulus preference assessment was conducted with all participants in order to identify a variety of highly preferred and non-preferred stimuli. Participants were first taught to utilise the VOCA switch, which when depressed successfully, participants were given access to a highly preferred stimulus. All participants learnt to successfully activate the VOCA switches quickly and consistently. Following this, two more switches were introduced with participants. One VOCA switch was associated with a no-choice option, which terminated the trial, while the other was associated with a non-preferred stimulus. Although participants maintained responding throughout the study, no participants learnt to discriminate between switches, and responding remained variable throughout towards all available switches. Social validity data was collected from staff and caregivers that had a close relationship with the participants. The results of the social validity survey found that all staff believed that teaching participants to use the VOCA switches was a valuable skill, and would be beneficial to participants. Despite responding remaining variable throughout the study, this research contributes to the existing research by discussing the importance of careful classification of participants’ abilities, the development of simple programs, and the importance of staff and caregiver considerations.
