Teaching children with Cerebral Palsy to mand: Comparison of two ABA methods

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two ABA approaches, (discrete trial teaching and incidental teaching) to teach mands to young children with cerebral palsy. The study was conducted with six children with cerebral palsy between the ages of two and six. Alternating treatment design was used to evaluate the results of the two interventions. The results suggest that both procedures may be effective to teach mands (manding for item and manding for missing actions) to young children with cerebral palsy across range of verbal topographies (vocal speech, PECS, pointing board). Contrary to previous studies all children who had follow-up sessions generalised the learned mand targets regardless of the teaching approach that was implemented to teach them. In addition to that it was also found that approximately half as many trials were conducted during an incidental session compared to a DTT session. Nonetheless three out of four children learned equal number of mand targets during both interventions. However there were differences found between numbers of sessions that were required to reach the learning criterion. Possible explanations for differences in the data between participants were discussed including observations regarding the procedural challenges due to the type of cerebral palsy and co-occurring impairments, selected response form (communication system), and the targeted mand operant.