Unconditioned Motivating Operations (UMOs) and Conditioned Motivating Operations (CMOs) in Voice Intensity Regulation
Maria Vincenza Picchiarelli
Autism spectrum disorders are often characterized by communication abnormalities that may include atypical prosody and tone of voice. Specifically, a low tone of voice has been identified as a significant obstacle to the progress of social skills, as it hinders the interlocutor’s understanding of content, affecting the quality of communication. In the present study, three autistic children, aged between 11 and 15 years, were taught to adopt an appropriate tone of voice with the aid of an instrument designed to measure the level of sound pressure (phonometer), through a shaping procedure, implemented during the emission of mands. The dependent variable of the study consists of the sound intensity of the mands, subjected to the shaping process. The data were then analysed by correlating the sound intensity and the number of mands, with the type (UMO and CMO) of motivation underlying the request.
Keywords
Autism, Tone of Voice, Social Skills, Conditional and Unconditional Motivation.