Ensino intensivo de tato e a indução de comportamento verbal em crianças com Transtorno do Espectro Autista

Abstract

The present doctoral thesis consists of: 1) a systematic literature review that analyzed experimental studies evaluating the effect of Intensive Tact Instruction (ITI) on the induction or increase of verbal repertoires, and 2) an experimental study that investigated the effect of ITI on the induction of Full Naming (FN - emergence of speaker and listener responses to objects/events after mere incidental exposure to their names) and Bidirectional Naming (BN - speaker responses to objects/events are taught, and listener responses to these objects/events emerge, and vice versa) in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The systematic review analyzed 10 studies, describing the participants' profiles, environment, and experimental design, parameters of independent variable implementation, results, effect size of the independent variable (Tau-U), and the methodological quality (MQ) of the studies. It was found that the majority of studies: a) were conducted with children with ASD in schools with an analytical-behavioral basis, using a multiple-probe design between participants; b) implemented ITI with 100 daily tact trials (5 times per week), with five sets of stimuli; c) showed positive results for the induction/expansion of tacts (with Tau-U from moderate to strong), mixed results for intraverbals (with Tau-U from weak to moderate), and no effect for mands (small Tau-U); and d) had adequate MQ. No study adequately assessed the effect of ITI on the induction of NC or BN. Three children with ASD participated in the experimental study. After implementing ITI with three sets of stimuli, two children showed emergence and generalization of BN and FN (one of them maintained both repertoires, and the other maintained BN). The third child showed emergence of BN and the listener component in FN tests. The results are discussed in light of the current literature.