hi I'm Kate Harrison a board certified behavior analyst with Brett DiNovi &
associates have you ever struggled with public speaking specifically adding a
bunch of unnecessary likes or comes during pauses when you're trying to
figure out what to say next or when you're nervous and this video is for you
in our profession we're in communication with our client their families and other
professionals like speech therapists occupational therapists and IEP team
teachers doctors and many other professionals in order to work together
and to meet the needs of our clients we must be able to effectively communicate
what we're doing and why we're doing it verbal fillers such as like um you know
and ah are something that everyone relies on especially the younger
generations according to communication experts these
phrases occur frequently when we're trying to think of what to say next
especially when we're nervous perhaps while giving a presentation conducting a
training sharing information and important meeting given that our field
is still very young we have an opportunity and an obligation to do our
very best to effectively spread the science while we may have important
information to share we're going to lose our credibility if we're unable to
effectively communicate not only this but excessive use of these filler words
and phrases and sounds is distracting for the audience for these reasons
research should be conducted to decrease these habits habit reversal is a
multi-component procedure typically presented as a package of numerous
individualized treatments implemented to achieve significant reductions in habit
behaviors research supports have it reversal for behaviors including take
disorders stuttering and common nervous habits such as nail biting hair pulling
or twirling thumb sucking teeth grinding and object and manipulation among many
others due to the success in significantly decreasing stuttering and
other habits Carolyn Lu kuso and Raymond G
miltenberger applied a simplified habit reversal treatment to participants who
engaged in build pause behaviors in their 2016 study enough current multiple
baseline design was used to a value the effectiveness of a habit reversal
procedure to reduce filler phrases during public speaking participants in
this study included six female college students who rated their public speaking
skills as average or below average and each exhibited use of filler phrases at
least twice per minute during their public speaking activities target
behaviors included filled pause which occurred when a speaker uttered a
nonsense syllable such as um ah and a length which was considered a filler in
an instance when it was not for matically appropriate to use it so for
example not making a comparison or used to indicate enjoyment tongue lifting
which was defined as any instance in which the speaker placed the tongue on
the roof of their mouth to create a clicking sound data was collected via
video reporting for both baseline and intervention assessment all sessions
included a three to five minute speech and frequency within fifteen second
interval recording data was collected on these target behaviors social validity
was collected by means of two surveys the first in which collected information
on their ability comfort and confidence in public speaking
prior to the intervention and the second in which evaluated the acceptability
satisfaction and ease of the intervention during baseline
participants were given the choice of topics and osteen news ten minutes to
prepare their five-minute speech data were collected and no feedback were
given in the baseline base habit reversal consisted of an awareness
training which had two components response description in which the
researcher and the participant discussed the topography of the target behaviors
that I mentioned earlier and response detection this is when the participant
and the researcher detected the behaviors in the video of baseline and
they practiced detecting these behaviors while they were giving a speech in which
the participant was instructed to raise their hands at any point in which they
engaged in the target behavior and to raise their left hand if they were about
to engage in the target behavior but they did not awareness training ended
when the participant identified a hundred percent of occurrences
the target behaviors in one speech or at least 85% of the target behaviors among
both speeches the competing response training phase was when the researcher
described and modeled competing target behaviors for the participant to use and
these included a three-second silent pause for any uh or um or ah placing the
tongue on the bottom of the front teeth for three seconds in response to any
time they engaged in tongue clicking behavior and restarting the sentence
without the inappropriate like when they engaged in an additional life that was
not appropriate for the sentence if the participant did not independently
identify an error within two seconds they were prompted by the researcher to
do so following the competing response phase there were two new topics assigned
to the participant and they dropped it out their speeches again before their
speech began the researcher informs the participant to use the competing
responses contingent on their target behavior again if the participant did
not engage in the competing response within two seconds the participant was
then prompted by the researcher competing response training ended when
the participant presented their speech and exhibited at least 80% reduction in
target behavior from baseline a post intervention assessment was given no
more than three days following the intervention for each participant if the
participant didn't display at least a 75% reduction from baseline and target
behaviors they were given a booster session which was identical to the habit
reversal training aside from the awareness training portion and a second
follow-up assessment occurred two to five weeks following the previous post
intervention assessment implementation fidelity was assessed in 33% of the
sessions and was 100 percent across participants and phases results from
this intervention showed that habit reversal training
greatly reduced these target behaviors and participants public speaking in
baseline participants were engaging in the target behavior for an average of
7.4 instances per minute which was reduced to an
average of 1.4 instances per minute following the intervention and they were
maintained across all participants in their follow-up sessions in addition to
its effectiveness the habit reversal intervention proved to be an efficient
intervention in that all participants exhibited a decrease in their target
behaviors immediately after a single session of the habit reversal training
and only one participant required the booster session social validity was high
and that participants rating or their overall abilities increased from a two
point two six to a two point nine seven participants also reported that they
liked the procedures they found them to be acceptable and effective in reducing
their target behaviors during their speeches some considerations for the
study include a lack of audience in addition to no generalization probes
being conducted however due to the impromptu nature of the speeches it is
possible that these results could generalize to a more natural setting
another consideration is the fact that prior research on habit reversal
interventions have applied to behaviors in which a person has the ability to
engage in at any moment like nail biting or hair twirling so the individuals also
have the opportunity to practice the competing responses on a regular basis
if a person is not in a situation where they would be engaging in frequent
public speaking they may not have the opportunity to practice this behavior
there's no research expanding this study like the 2019 montes at all studies
should be conducted exploring generalization to various natural
environments and long term results as mentioned public speaking whether it's
to a group of 500 people or to a team of 3 people is a necessary part of our job
are you guilty of some of the previously mentioned target behaviors we want to
hear from you leave a comment below and let us know ethnic and if you want to
help us spread the science please like this video share it with your colleagues
and don't forget to subscribe thanks for watching