A phonological disorder is a communication disorder of the speech sound system characterized by an impaired ability to use developmentally expected speech sounds and sound patterns to communicate with others (Bauman-Waengler, 2004). This impairment affects the clarity of a child's speech and how easily a child's speech can be understood. As stated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) (American Psychiatric Association, 1994), difficulties with speech sound production may interfere with academic achievement, social communication, or future occupational achievement. Children with phonological impairments are generally viewed as being at risk for reading difficulties (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2001).Clinicians and researchers in speech-language pathology agree that efficient treatment of children who have moderate to severe phonological disorders is critical. Although imitation and structured practice are primary strategies employed by speech- language pathologists for practicing speech production, using communicative tasks to facilitate generalization during phonological intervention has been suggested in the literature.The purpose of this study was to determine if communication-centered phonological intervention would be effective in improving speech production in preschool children with moderate to severe phonological disorders. A single subject multiple probe across subjects research design (Horner andamp; Baer, 1978) was used to assess the effectiveness of communication-centered phonological intervention with three preschool children. The communication-centered phonological intervention in this investigation consisted of the combined application of focused stimulation of key words during joint storybook reading and interactive practice of key words using communicative feedback.All three subjects demonstrated some type of phonological improvement following the communication-centered intervention. Two out of the three subjects demonstrated improvement in the use of the target phonological patterns during theintervention sessions with one of these participants demonstrating generalization of the target phonological pattern to conversational speech. Although the third subject did not demonstrate improvement during the intervention period, follow-up testing revealed some system-wide changes in his phonology that may be attributed to the intervention. Further investigation of communication-centered phonological intervention is warranted.

Language development involves the learning of multiple sets of equivalence relations. Research has shown that if certain conditional relations are directly taught for one member of a class of stimuli, then additional conditional relations often emerge for other members of that class, without direct training. There are currently very few studies which have demonstrated this research finding in individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The research design used for the present experiment was a single-subject AB cross-over design replicated across five plus five children with ASD and five plus five typically developing children. The children with ASD and the typically developing children were matched on their level of vocabulary development. Participants were randomly assigned to either a teaching order Treatment A+B or a teaching order Treatment B+A. The first experimental treatment (Treatment A+B) involved teaching responses to S1 and S2 in the order Condition A followed by Condition B. The second experimental treatment (Treatment B+A) involved teaching responses to S1 and S2 in the order Condition B followed by Condition A. Condition A involved the teaching of AB and AC (hear-select) relations, and Condition B involved the teaching of BA and CA (see-say) relations. The participants in this study were taught stimulus-response relations that involved six names and numerical representations of quantities in the range 1 to 18. Tests for the emergence of symmetry and transitivity were then conducted. The relationships between the emergence of the untaught equivalence relations and teaching condition, the entering characteristics of the children, and trials to criterion were examined. The results of this study showed that five out of ten participants with ASD demonstrated the emergence of all of the untaught equivalence relations regardless of the treatment condition. The remaining five participants with ASD showed substantial variability. Of the children in the Typically Developing Group nine of the ten demonstrated emergence of all of the untaught equivalence relations. The variables that were most strongly correlated with the emergence of untaught equivalence relations were speed of acquisition of taught relations, functional academics scores, and the chronological age of the participants. The effect of communication ability, pre-academic numeracy skill level, and the experimental treatment (the teaching order conditions) were not strongly related to the emergence of untaught equivalence relations. These findings suggest that outcomes on tests for emergence may have been a function of children’s rate of development and prior learning history. The findings of the current study are best explained by Relational Frame Theory. The implications of these findings for teaching children with ASD and other developmental disabilities, and also teaching in general are discussed.

Until recently, research into the social consequences of affect has focused almost exclusively on conscious judgments and behaviours. The present research investigates the impact of positive and negative affective states on automatic behavioural priming, a nonconscious social process that enables us to efficiently and effortlessly assimilate or contrast our behaviour with contextual cues. Based on previous research into factors moderating the outcome of behavioural priming, it is hypothesized that positive affect will increase the magnitude of assimilation effects, while negative affect will induce contrast effects. The results of seven experiments conducted both in the laboratory and in the field provide support for this hypothesis, and suggest that the impact of affect on behavioural priming is mediated by the way in which primed mental content is used to guide behaviour. The theoretical and clinical implications of this research as well as future research directions are discussed.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2007. / "May, 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 33-36). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves : [83]-85).

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 95-97)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Psychology Department, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

"Mapping is a way of visualizing parts of the world and maps are largely diagrammatic and two dimensional. There is usually a one-to-one correspondence between places in the world and places on the map, but while there are limitless aspects to the world, the cartographer can only select a few to map" Daniel Dorling, 1996 Map generalization is the process by which small scale maps are derived from large scale maps. This requires the application of operations such as simplification, selection, displacement and amalgamation to map features subsequent to scale reduction. The work is concerned with the problem of effective rendering of large scale datasets on small display devices by developing appropriate map generalization techniques for generating schematic maps. With the advent of high-end miniature technology and large scale digital geographic data products it is essential to devise proper methodologies and techniques for the automated generation of schematic maps specifically tailored for mobile GIS applications. Schematic maps are diagrammatic representation based on linear abstractions of networks. Transportation networks are the key candidates for applying schematization to help ease the interpretation of information by the process of cartographic abstraction. This study looks at how simulated annealing optimisation technique can be successfully applied for automated generation of schematic maps from large scale digital geographic datasets tailored specifically for mobile GIS applications. The software developed makes use of a simulated annealing based schematic map generator algorithm to generate route maps from OSCAR® dataset corresponding to a series of user defined start and end points. The generated schematic route maps are displayed and tested on mobile handheld devices shows promising results for mobile GIS applications. This work concentrates on the automatic generation of schematic maps, which, in the context of mobile mapping, are seen as being a particularly useful means of displaying routes for way finding type and utility network applications.

The current set of experiments examined the utility of implementing the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge (PEAK) Relational Training System (Dixon, 2014a, 2014b), an empirically validated assessment and intervention guide developed for children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), within Intensive Behavioral Intervention (IBI). Experiment 1 examined the relationship between scores on the commonly used Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales Second Edition (VABS-II) (Sparrow, Cicchetto, & Balla, 2005) and scores on the PEAK Direct Training (PEAK-DT) (Dixon, 2014a) and PEAK Generalization (PEAK-G) (Dixon, 2014b) program assessments to examine additional psychometric properties suggesting the potential utility for use within IBI services. Experiment 2 examined the extent to which the PEAK manual (Dixon, 2014b) or additional staff training increased PEAK discrete trial training (DTT) procedural integrity of staff providing IBI to children diagnosed with ASD. Experiment 3 examined the effects of PEAK-G curriculum and instruction on the advanced language skills of children with ASD receiving IBI services. Results suggest that PEAK may be a valid assessment tool and effective intervention guide for use in IBI. Also, the manual and other effective staff training procedures (e.g., feedback, behavioral skills training) effectively enhance PEAK-G DTT procedural integrity. Lastly, the set of experiments in the current paper contributes to the dissemination of empirically based, behavior-analytic research that contributes to practical assessments and advanced interventions for children diagnosed with ASD. Specifically, PEAK-G enhances the language repertoires of children diagnosed with ASD through direct contingencies and programming for generalization across generalization gradients.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of a rival- model learning procedure on the acquisition of variations of color tacts and assessment of generalized tacting with children with autism. The participants IQs ranged from 49 to 63 and all were eleven years of age or younger. A multiple baseline across participants with embedded multiple probe was used. The child’s typical therapist functioned as an observational model but participants never received programmed consequences for responding related to the target behavior. The results of this study indicated that using a rival-model procedure produced accurate responding on trained stimuli tacting shades of color as well as generalized shades of color. This study adds to the limited amount of research published on the rival-model observational learning method with children with autism and related disabilities. Keywords: Autism, generalization, PEAK Relational Training System, rival-model,