The Effectiveness of Instruction on Mand Model - One of the Milieu Teaching Techniques

Abstract

Problem Statement: Speech and language therapists support and work with individuals who will provide and contribute to children's early language development. Milieu teaching should be included in the curriculum of speech and language pathology students to teach them how to endorse early language development. Purpose of Study: This study investigated the effectiveness of an instructional program designed to teach mand-model-one of the milieu teaching techniques-and the effectiveness of that mand-model on teaching vocabulary items to children with delayed speech and language. Furthermore, the follow-up effects of this program also were examined eight and sixteen weeks after the termination of the program. Methods: One of the single-subject research designs, multiple-probe model across subjects, was used to assess the effectiveness of the instructional program developed to teach mand-model, a technique in milieu teaching. The participants were two speech and language therapy graduate students and one teacher working with three children with developmental disabilities. Three children with whom these participants were working also attended the study. Full probe, probe, training, and follow-up sessions were conducted to assess the effectiveness of the instructional program designed to teach mand-model. All sessions were carried out in a one-to-one educational setting. Both interobserver and procedural reliability data were collected and the effectiveness of the instructional program developed to teach mand-model was determined through graphic analysis. Findings and Results: The findings of the study revealed that the instructional program designed to teach mand-model was effective for all participants and that the newly-learned items were retained eight and sixteen weeks after termination of the program. Conclusions and Recommendations: Practitioners in the field may consider using this training program when delivering instruction to teachers and student teachers. Further research could conduct an error analysis to identify whether participants make more errors in giving mand or providing model.