Echoic behavior is a concept that arises from the work of Skinner Verbal behavior (1957), where he explains how imitation is essential for language acquisition.
Next We will see what echoic behavior is and how it is studied in psychology
When children are young, their oral language is basically made up of innate sounds and babbles typical of their native language.
It is the people around them (especially parents) who shape the child’s vocal productions, through successive approaches. This means reinforcing sounds that become similar more and more to the target word, until this is the one that the child learns to say, and which ends up being incorporated into his verbal repertoire.
Thus, thanks to the environment and as they grow, their vocabulary is richer and more varied.
Language can also be considered a behavior, as discussed below. The so-called operant conditioning, which was introduced by Skinner, consists of a form of teaching through which a subject is more likely to repeat forms of behavior that entail positive consequences and less likely to repeat those that entail negative consequences.
This type of conditioning is the basis of many behaviors, including echoic behavior.
What is echoic behavior?
Echoic behavior is verbal behavior (for example, uttering a word), which It is emitted in the presence of a vocal stimulus and is socially reinforced by its sound similarity Echoic means belonging to or relating to the echo, that is, to the sound.
So, for example, saying “pen” when someone says “pen” is reinforced with “very good” (or another word that acts as a reinforcer). In simpler words, it would be what we typically know as “repeat.”
Structure
To understand a little more how this type of behavior is shaped we are going to explain the sequence that would be used.
First a discriminative stimulus would appear, which is always sound (e.g. “di”); then the vocal response would appear (e.g. “pen”) and finally the social reinforcer (e.g. “Very good”, a smile, etc.).
Echoic behavior and the verbal stimulus share what is known as a point-for-point correspondence (a formal similarity).
The verbal discriminatives mentioned (“say coin”) would in turn act as a verbal command that, when executed (when the child says “currency”), will be reinforced and increase the probability that the child will correctly reproduce the word in the future.
This sequence that we have mentioned would be repeated, and if the vocal response always occurs after the discriminative stimulus, it is then said that behavior is under the control of verbal stimuli When this structure is trained and maintained over time, the child ends up acquiring the corresponding words and incorporating them into his or her repertoire.
How to enhance the learning of this type of behavior?
In educational practice, to teach vocabulary to a child and enhance their language, we can use the discriminative “di”, attached to the word we want to teach; for example “say coin”.
Another example would be when, when learning a new language, the instructor says (for example) “parsimonious” and then adds “can you say it?”, to induce echoic behavior. That is, verbal discriminatives can also be questions.
Echoic behaviors are maintained by social reinforcement (generalized and conditioned), and thus, can be generalized to different times and contexts with proper training Thus, the child can reproduce new sounds (words) that adults present to him.
Evolution towards pathology: echolalia
However, there may be cases in which echoic behavior is not functional and becomes pathological: these are the so-called echolalias. Are They appear when the child systematically repeats a word or fragment of the listener’s speech
Sometimes echolalia can be delayed, appearing minutes, hours, days, or even weeks after being heard. Echolalia frequently appears associated with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disabilities. Many times it is a form of self-stimulation.
On the other hand, sometimes children can self-reinforce their own vocal behaviors by producing sounds they have heard in other people’s speech.
The fact of changing intonation can be reinforcing property for the child, and not so much the word itself, as some other special aspect of the speaker. In this case, it would not be specifically echoic or functional behaviors.
Behavior modification programs
Echoic behavior is very present in behavior modification programs aimed at specific groups, such as, for example, children with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorders, already mentioned above. This type of program includes a wide variety of behaviors to establish, including language.
Specifically in this type of children, the stimulation of language is a primary objective, since it enables the development of other learning.
The programs are based on operant conditioning, and shaping is used to stimulate language; Thus, at first words that are close to words will be reinforced. At first, they don’t necessarily have to be words; They can be syllables, and especially if the child does not yet have language, for example “cam” to end up saying “truck”.
As these are intensive programs, the child progressively (always according to his/her characteristics), He will make sounds that are increasingly similar to the words we are trying to teach him
As has been said, reinforcing the child’s verbal behaviors will enable more complex behaviors, as well as the fact that he or she can communicate in a more functional way and can express emotions, desires, states, etc.
