The Effects of Transfer of Stimulus Control Procedures and Peer-Mediated Intervention on the Acquisition and Generalization of Intraverbals for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Intraverbals are a type of verbal behavior that occurs when a verbal stimulus evokes a verbal response that has no point-to-point correspondence or formal similarity with the verbal stimulus (Skinner, 1957). One teaching procedure used to establish intraverbal skills is transfer of stimulus control procedure. Although a number of research studies have shown that transfer of stimulus control procedures appeared to be effective in teaching intraverbals for children with ASD, the gains observed in the training did not transfer, or generalize, to other people and settings. That is, merely the use of transfer of stimulus control procedures did not yield the generalization of intraverbal responses. The literature on generalization has emphasized that generalization does not occur unless specific procedures such as programming common stimuli are also provided (Stokes & Osnes, 1989; Stokes & Baer, 1977). In this study, the researcher investigated the effects of transfer of stimulus control procedures and a peer prompting procedure on the acquisition and generalization of intraverbals across peers without disabilities using a multiple baseline across three conversation scripts design. Two children with ASD and four typically-developing children participated in this study. Upon the intervention, both participants demonstrated increased contextually-appropriate intraverbal responses in a few sessions. Results also indicated that the combined approach showed promising generalization outcomes related to increases in correct intraverbals. Additionally, both participants required decreased number of adult-delivered prompts to converse with their peers during peer prompting sessions, indicating that they would maintain social interaction in the teacher’s absence. Considerations for interpretation and recommendations for future directions of this study are also discussed

A systematic review of the effects of prolonged cow-calf contact on behavior, welfare, and productivity

Separation of calves from cows within hours or days of birth is common on dairy farms. Stakeholders have conflicting perspectives on whether this is harmful or beneficial for the animals’ welfare and production. Our objective was to critically evaluate the scientific evidence for both acute and long-term effects of early separation versus an extended period of cow-calf contact. The outcomes investigated were the behavior, welfare (excluding physical health) and performance (milk yield and growth, respectively) of dairy cows and calves. Primary research papers were found through targeted Web of Science searches, the reference lists of recent reviews for each topic, and the reference lists of papers identified from these sources. Studies were included if they were published in English, the full text was accessible, and they compared treatments with and without contact between dairy cows and calves for a specified period. Early separation (within 24 h post-partum) was found to reduce acute distress responses of cows and calves. However, longer cow-calf contact typically had positive longer-term effects on calves, promoting more normal social behavior, reducing abnormal behavior and sometimes reducing responses to stressors. In terms of productivity, allowing cows to nurse calves generally decreased the volume of milk available for sale during the nursing period, but there was no consistent evidence of reduced milk production over a longer period. Allowing a prolonged period of nursing increased calf weight gains during the milk-feeding period. In summary, extended cow-calf contact aggravates the acute distress responses and reduces the amount of saleable milk while the calves are suckling, but can have positive effects on behaviors relevant to welfare in the longer term and benefit calf growth. The strength of these conclusions is limited, however, given that relatively few studies address most of these effects and that experimental design including timing of contact and observations are often inconsistent across studies. Few studies presented indicators of long-term welfare effects other than abnormal and social behavior of the calves

fluency data storing

It is a visual display of data showing the number of correct intraverbals emitted by each participant in two treatment conditions

Effect of Different Rearing during the Milk-Feeding Period on Growth of Dairy Calves

The objective was to determine the impact of calves’ rearing, gender, and the sire lineage on the growth and health. One hundred-and-five Holstein calves were assigned to one of three treatments: single suckling (SS), multiple suckling (MS), and artificially rearing in hutches (H). All calves received a comparable amount of milk/milk replacer (MR) across treatments. All calves were weaned at the 84th day. After weaning, all calves were separated by sex in age-balanced groups. At weaning, the highest body weight was in MS and the lowest in H (SS 94.97 kg, MS 109.85 kg, H 80.80 kg, p < 0.001). The average gains from the birth to weaning were 0.67 kg (SS), 0.81 kg (MS), 0.48 kg (H), (p < 0.001). A difference (p < 0.01) was found for the period from birth to 180th day of life (SS 0.75 kg, MS 0.82 kg, H 0.67 kg). We did not notice a gender differences (p > 0.05). The Sire 1 progeny showed a lower body weight at 180 days (p < 0.01) and 360 days (p < 0.05). The results indicate that the method used to rear calves and sire lines had a significant impact on their later performance