The «Mirror Protocol» for the teaching of generalised imitation to a child with an intellectual disability
Alice Scattolin, Vanessa Artoni, Samantha Giannatiempo, Federica Martino, Federica Berardo
The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the «Mirror Protocol» for teaching Generalized Imitation (GI), a fundamental prerequisite for language development. The participant was a five-year-old with a diagnosis of intellectual disability and dyspraxia, in accordance with the DSM-5 (APA, 2013) diagnostic criteria. The dependent variables recorded in the study were three. The first one was the number of actions correctly imitated and never taught, issued by the participant in a 1:1 relationship with the teacher; the second one consisted of the number of replies of imitation of actions linked to age-suitable songs, in a group-play context; the third one was the number of echo replies issued in a repetition task of words in Italian and English. The independent variable was the procedure of the «Mirror Protocol», which taught sets of two actions through Learn Units with discrete mirror tests. The procedure proved to be effective for the acquisition of Generalised Imitation (GI) capacity in a 1:1 relationship. As for imitation of group gestures and the number of echo replies issued in a repetition task of words in Italian and English, the participant showed an improvement compared to their initial condition, but did not reach pre-established mastery criteria.
Keywords
«Mirror Protocol», generalised imitation, intellectual disability.
