ABSTRACT

In this study, the effect of Multiple Exemplar Instruction (MEI) using digital media on the naming of children with developmental disabilities was examined. The subjects of this study were three children with developmental disabilities aged 5 to 6 who were diagnosed and found with autism spectrum disorder or intellectual disability. A multiple probe across participants design was applied to the study, and the MEI intervention was delayed for each child. Before entering the intervention, three study subjects were individually identified through a preliminary experimental toolset to identify objects that had no history of learning in the past, and 16 tools were adopted from the preliminary experimental toolset. In this way, a set of individualized experimental tools for each child consisting of 8 photos and 8 digital media per study subject was produced. Digital media were presented in the form of GIF files played on tablet PCs. After teaching only the matching reaction to children using set 1 among the manufactured experimental tools, it was examined whether untaught responses—pointing, tact, and intraverbal—emerged. Children who failed to perform the reactions of pointing, tact, and intraverbal that were not directly taught were considered to have no naming ability, and MEI intervention was conducted. In the MEI intervention procedure, MEI intervention was conducted by alternately repeatedly teaching matching, pointing, tact, and intraverbal until the child’s performance satisfies the criteria. After MEI intervention, whether the reactions of pointing, tact, and intraverbal that were not directly taught using set 1 appeared, the baseline procedure was conducted after the intervention to determine whether there were any changes in the dependent variables of this study, listener naming and speaker naming. As a result of the study, all three study subjects showed significantly improved performance in the responses of pointing, tact, and intraverbal that were not directly taught at the baseline after the intervention than at the baseline before the intervention, confirming that listener naming and speaker naming were newly acquired and improved.

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