Date of Award

2014

Document Type

Open Access Dissertation

Department

Communication Sciences and Disorders

First Advisor

Angela N McLeod

Abstract

Selective mutism is an extremely rare socio-pragmatic communication disorder that affects less than 1% of the population. The treatment of selective mutism may be addressed via many different approaches, including drug therapies and behavioral approaches or combinations of both. Self-modeling is a behavioral approach and is similar to that of video modeling. Video modeling treatment is becoming a more popular approach to serve individuals with social and behavioral disorders. Video modeling has been documented to improve social and behavioral deficits in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Because selective mutism is a rare condition and because the effects of video modeling and video self- modeling treatment are not well-documented, this case study explores the effects of a video modeling and video self-modeling hybrid approach on twin, school-aged females, both with a diagnosis of selective mutism.

A hybrid approach of video modeling and video self-modeling was implemented in five weekly sessions of individual therapy. Two participants, both with a diagnosis of selective mutism participated in a nine- week study. Initially, during two different sessions, a language sample was collected from each participant. Following the initial collection of language samples, the participants were enrolled in five weeks of video modeling and video self-modeling treatment. At the conclusion of the therapy, two post-treatment language samples were collected from each participant.

The post-treatment language samples were compared with the pre-treatment to determine if there was any increase in a) Type-Token Ratio to determine what types of words the participants were using; b) Mean Length of Utterance to determine the average length of statements; c) total number of utterances; d) frequency of initiation of conversation; e) frequency of eye contact during interactions; f) use of greeting; and g) frequency of not responding to prompts/questions. An increase was seen in all of the following: total number of utterances; frequency of initiation of conversation; frequency of eye contact during interactions; use of greetings. Mean Length of Utterance, Type-Token Ratio, and frequency of not responding to prompts/questions appeared to not improve as a result of video modeling treatment.

Rights

© 2014, Danielle Newberry Phillips

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