Abstract
Studies have shown that including lipreading instruction as a component of aural rehabilitation therapy may improve a person's lipreading performance. Various methods to teach lipreading have been proposed as part of aural rehabilitation therapy; however, little empirical evidence has been demonstrated to support any particular method. Behavior analytic research has demonstrated the efficacy of the use of prompts and reinforcement to teach verbal behavior. The purpose of the first study was to test whether the use of prompt delay procedures combined with programmed reinforcement and error correction would be effective in teaching lipreading. In this study, five adults ages 74 to 88 with moderate to severe hearing loss were taught 10 five-sample sets of words. Results indicated that for all participants the use of prompt delay procedures combined with programmed reinforcement and error correction procedures were effective in teaching lipreading. Generalization and maintenance probes indicated variable performance. A second study was conducted to assess the effects of specific stimulus selection and recombination on rates of generalization and maintenance. Two adults ages 23 and 25 with normal hearing were taught 5 five-sample sets of syllables. The syllables were then combined and recombined to form real words during post-testing. Results indicated that for both participants teaching lipreading to carefully selected stimuli was effective at producing increases in response generalization and maintenance.