One 2 One (Feliciano Japanese Vocal) !FULL!
In 1955, Rodríguez found out that Joe Cuba was in need of a singer for his sextet. Aware that Feliciano was also a talented singer, he recommended Cuba that he try out for the position. Feliciano auditioned and became a vocalist for the Joe Cuba Sextet. He was the rare baritone among salsa singers, and his deep voice and quick wit as an improviser made him a favorite among the Latino public.[3][4][5]
One 2 One (Feliciano Japanese Vocal)
During a hiatus of Juan de la Cruz, Smith formed his own band, The Airwaves circa 1976. The members were Smith (vocals/dobro/drums), Jun Lopito (guitar), Gary Perez, formerly of Sampaguita (guitar), Gil Cruz (bass) and Edmond Fortuno (drums).[18]
Automatic reinforcement does not require the mediation of consequences by another organism (Vaughan & Michael, 1982). Some behavior has stimulus products that can themselves function as reinforcers. Driving, singing, playing musical instruments, painting, and swimming are examples of behaviors that may be reinforced by their own products and thus are susceptible to a process of automatic shaping. Vocal sounds can also be conditioned as automatic reinforcers when such sounds are paired with reinforcing stimuli (Bijou & Baer, 1965; Skinner, 1957). For example, when a mother produces the sound /yeah/ while cuddling a baby, the baby may later produce a similar sound without the presence of the mother. Reinforcement may also come from exercising the vocal musculature, from emotional arousal that is associated with a sound, or by achieving parity (Palmer, 1996) within a particular verbal community.
Automatic reinforcement, especially for vocal sounds in a language, may be established through a stimulus-stimulus pairing, which involves an adult-generated vocal sound being paired with an existing reinforcer in the presence of a child (Skinner, 1957; Sundberg, et al., 1996; Vaughan & Michael, 1982). When pairings are provided, the child may start to vocalize the sound or the approximation of the sound heard during pairings. Vocal play increases opportunities to strengthen vocal muscles as well as the chance that vocal behavior will receive further reinforcement (Sundberg, et al., 1996). It also provides a basis for a shaping process in which contingencies are devised in an effort to bring these vocalizations under operant control (Bijou & Baer, 1965).
Several studies have demonstrated that a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure can evoke and shape vocalizations in children (Miguel, et al., 2002; Smith, et al., 1996; Sundberg, et al, 1996; Yoon, 1998; Yoon & Bennett, 2000). Sundberg, et al. (1996) demonstrated that a stimulus-stimulus pairing can lead to an increase of vocal sounds, words, or phrases that had not been in the participants' repertoires. The effect of the pairing procedure was evaluated with four children with severe to moderate language delays between the ages of 2 and 4 years who demonstrated a range of 100 to 300 mands and tacts.
These empirical studies demonstrated that a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure can induce vocal sounds, words, or phrases, but the phenomenon requires further investigation. Participants in both studies were infants and children who had many forms of verbal behavior in their repertoires, or in other ways demonstrated typical development. Evaluation of these procedures with children with more severe delays, or with major deficits in vocal play and language acquisition, is warranted. The relation between pairing effectiveness and the nature of the existing repertoire is not clear. In the study by Sundberg and his colleagues (1996), novel sounds, words, and phrases were conditioned as reinforcers, but in the study by Smith and his colleagues (1996), all the sounds paired were already in the participants' repertoires.
Yoon & Bennett (2000) extended the investigation of the effect of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure to four preschool children with severe developmental delays who had no oral motor or vocal verbal imitation skills and no functional vocal verbal behavior in their repertoire. In Experiment 1, novel vocal sounds were paired with preferred stimuli (e.g., tickles) approximately 36 times during a 3 minute pairing session. All participants showed an increase in the target sound immediately after the pairing session. In Experiment 2, the pairing condition was compared with an echoic condition in which a reinforcer was given only contingent upon imitation of an antecedent vocal sound. This comparison was necessary in order to determine whether the increase in the target sounds in Experiment I could have been advantageously reinforced during the pairing condition. In a comparison of pre-echoic, echoic, post-echoic, pairing and post-pairing conditions, an immediate and significant increase in the target sound occurred only after the pairing condition. These findings suggest that an automatic reinforcement contingency through a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure may be more effective than a direct reinforcement contingency by echoic training for children with severe delays who have little to no baseline verbal behavior. It should also be noted that for three of the four participants vocal sounds eventually extinguished during the post pairing sessions. This is to be expected if the stimulus properties of the vocal responses were functioning as conditioned reinforcers. In the post-pairing condition, the primary reinforcer was no longer being delivered.
Miguel, et al. (2002) further evaluated a stimulus-stimulus pairing with three children at the ages of 3 to 5 with minimal vocal repertoires (a few sounds, but no mand, tact, or intraverbal skills). Data were taken on the frequencies of two target sounds for each participant during a 5-min pre-session and a 5-min post-session period. A two-tiered multiple baseline design across vocal behaviors with a reversal to baseline was employed. During baseline, which lasted for 5 min, there were no programmed contingencies or interaction. During the control condition, a vocal sound was presented five times. A stimulus identified as a reinforcer was presented contingent upon the absence of the sounds within 20 s of the vocal antecedent. This procedure was designed to control for advantageous reinforcement and the effects of modeling and of enriched environments. This was repeated for 20 trials. During the pairing condition, a vocal sound was presented five times, and the reinforcer was given after the third vocal sound but before the last sound. This was repeated for 20 pairings, and then there was a return to the baseline. Observations were made immediately before (pre-session) or after (post-session) each baseline, control, and pairing session. The findings of this experiment supported previous work by demonstrating an immediate increase in vocalizations after the pairing sessions for two participants The results showed that the vocal sounds eventually extinguished, suggesting that a direct reinforcement contingency may be necessary for the sound during post-pairing sessions if the behavior is to persevere.
Recently, Esch, Carr, and Michael (2005) further evaluated the role of pairing with three children with autism. In their first experiment, they compared the occurrence of target and non-target sounds in the echoic condition (control condition) and in the echoic-with-antecedent-pairings condition in which a total of 30 pairings were presented prior to the echoic probe. The results indicated that the stimulus-stimulus pairings had no effect on increasing the rate of the target vocalization, and thus a direct reinforcement contingency (in this study, echoic) could not come into play. The results from their second experiment, a systematic replication of Miguel et al. (2002), indicated that the rate of vocalizations for two participants from the first experiment did not increase over baseline levels following pairings. In their third experiment, an attempt was made to shape the vocalization using differential reinforcement. Their results showed equivocal results of differential reinforcement on the occurrence of targeted vocalizations. However, the authors noted that for one of the participants, items identified as preferred did not function as reinforcers and thus had less effect on his vocal behavior, thus warranting the importance of a thorough preference assessment prior to implementing a pairing procedure.
Cumulative number of vocalizations emitted by Participants JO and A (high vocal play and low verbal responses). Open squares represent the target vocal responses in pre-pairing, pairing, and post-pairng conditions. Closed circles represent the target vocal responses in pre-pairing, pairing, and direct reinforcement conditions.
Pairing. Sessions in the pairing condition started immediately after the pre-pairing condition. The experimenter emitted the target vocal sound once and simultaneously presented the predetermined reinforcing event (tangible or physical interaction) for each pairing. Approximately 12 pairings were presented per minute. The total duration of the pairing sessions was 3 min for each participant. Except for the experimenter's target vocal sound paired with the reinforcing stimuli, there were no vocal or physical interactions between experimenter and participant during the sessions.
Direct Reinforcement. This condition immediately followed the pairing sessions. The item or activity (reinforcer) used in the pairing sessions was available and in the sight of the participant. The item or activity was delivered contingent upon the participant emitting the target sound or an approximation of the sound in an attempt to shape those sounds as a mand. If the participant reached for the item but did not vocalize the target sound, the experimenter did not give the participant an opportunity to receive the item. This direct reinforcement condition lasted for 5 min for all participants in order to correspond with the duration of the pre-pairing condition, except for JO and A.
Figure 2 shows results for JO and A. Both had zero target vocalizations in the pre-pairing and pairing conditions. For JO, target vocalizations occurred after 5.5 min in the post-pairing condition with a total of seven target sounds (RPM = .54). There was an abrupt increase in rate after 8 min with a jump from two target sounds to seven target sounds in 30 s. For Participant A, after 1 min in the post-pairing condition, target sounds occurred for three time bins, then two more vocalizations occurred after 10.5 min for total of 11 target sounds (RPM =. 65). 041b061a72