The three individuals were all boys who had speech scores equivalent to 1 year 9 months or less and all previous methods used to teach speech were ineffective. One subject was 12, one was 3 years 8 months, and one was 5 years 9 months old. All three were diagnosed with autism and the diagnosis was confirmed by two independent agencies. Each individual participated in “biweekly sessions at an after-school behavioral treatment program” (Charlop-Christy, Carpenter, Lee, Leblanc, & Kellet, 2002). The authors were not clear if the sessions occurred two times per week or once every two weeks, but it was likely the former as one session every two weeks does not seem to be appropriate. The data was collected prior to, during and post PECS training in order to get a comparison of the benefits staggering the start of the condition in order to more fully develop recognition of a functional relationship between the use of PECS and the increase of speech. The two settings in which these measurements were taken were free play time and academic …show more content…
This would seem appropriate in order to control for maturation effects (increasing speech over time in sessions). It was also good that they measured speech in both play (subject chosen activities) and academic (researcher chosen activities) activities in order to control for subject preference and demand situations. The researchers measured spontaneous speech as well as imitative speech which is also significant because in some cases a child will increase imitative speech, but not spontaneous speech. In these cases the increase in language would seem to be less beneficial since the goal would be for the individual to increase functional language to get his or her needs