Evaluating the Emergence of Reverse Intraverbals in Children with Autism

Verbal behavior plays a fundamental role in the development of complex social and communication skills. Many children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder exhibit profound deficiencies in intraverbal repertoires and the development of social relationships. Recent studies that investigated the effects of intraverbal training on the emergence of reverse intraverbals produced mixed results (e.g., Perez-Gonzalez et al., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 40:697–701, 2007)). In the current study, a multiple-probe design across four participants with autism was used to evaluate the effects of intraverbal training on the emergence of reverse intraverbals. Intraverbal training consisted of multiple exemplars taught concurrently, bidirectional stimulus-response teaching formats, general case analysis, reinforcement, and a constant prompt delay (CPD) procedure. Participants were trained on intraverbal targets and probes were conducted to assess emergence of untaught reverse intraverbals. Three participants demonstrated the emergence of reverse intraverbals as a result of the intraverbal training procedures. Social validity and maintenance of target responses and emergent reverse intraverbals were assessed.     

The Use of Instructive Feedback to Promote Emergent Tact and Intraverbal Control: A Replication

Instructive feedback (IF) involves incorporating additional acquisition targets into skill-acquisition programs. A recent study by Frampton and Shillingsburg (2020) found that IF led to emergent verbal operants with two elementary-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The current study replicated Frampton and Shillingsburg with two children with ASD. Therapists conducted sessions of mastered listener-by-name trials (e.g., “Show me otter,” with pictures of otter, dog, and elephant) with IF statements for features of the target stimuli (e.g., “It lives in rivers.”) embedded during the consequence portion of the trial. We evaluated the acquisition of secondary targets and emergent responses using a concurrent multiple baseline across sets design. We observed increased correct responding for secondary targets and emergent responses for all three sets of stimuli with one participant. The other participant emitted correct responses for secondary targets and emergent operants with the first set but not with the other two sets of stimuli. Results suggested that IF can lead to emergent verbal operants, but the extent of emergence may be idiosyncratic.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40616-022-00171-y.     

Emergence of Mands and Tacts of Novel Objects among Preschool Children

According to Skinner''s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior, the mand and the tact are functionally independent verbal operants, each of which is acquired through a unique history of reinforcement. The present study attempted to replicate the findings of Lamarre and Holland (1985), who empirically demonstrated functional independence of mands and tacts in typically developing preschool children. Five children participated. All were initially trained to complete two 4-piece assembly tasks. Four children were then trained to tact the four pieces that comprised one of the assembly tasks, and to mand for the four pieces that comprised the other task, using arbitrary vocal response forms. The remaining child received tact training only, and only on one task. The effects of training on the untrained operant were evaluated in a multiple-probe design across tasks. Following mand training, 4 out of 4 children reliably emitted tacts under testing conditions, while the effects of tact training differed across participants. The results differ from those of Lamarre and Holland, but are not necessarily surprising from the point of view of either Skinner''s analysis or more recent behavioral accounts of language. Future research should attempt to identify variables that affect transfer between mand and tact relations.     

The Effects of the Interspersal of Related Responses on the Emergence of Intraverbals for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - The present study evaluated the emergence of intraverbals for 2 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Prior to baseline, both children demonstrated...     

An Evaluation of Instruction in Visual Imagining on the Written Spelling Performance of Adolescents with Learning Disabilities

Recent research has evaluated the utility of teaching potentially covert strategies to mediate overt performance. As an extension of this developing literature, the current study used a multiple-probe design to evaluate the effects of instructing in a visual imagining strategy on correct written spelling responses with three adolescents with various learning disabilities. After the participants were presented with the textual target stimuli, they were instructed to imagine the word in their head before writing it down. All three participants demonstrated improvements in spelling after this instruction, but two of them required additional consequences to meet the mastery criterion.     

The Effects of Praising Qualifying Autoclitics on the Frequency of Reading

In the current study, tacts with positive qualifying autoclitics for reading were reinforced in order to determine if this procedure would increase the time spent reading by participants. Participants included 5 children, between 9–10 years old. Participants were individually exposed to 4 free operant sessions during which they were instructed to independently choose play activities. During pre- and post-treatment conditions, no consequences were provided for choosing reading. In addition, 4 treatment sessions were conducted on days separate from the free operant session days, during which the experimenter praised each positive reading-related statement emitted by the participant. Following treatment sessions, 4 out of 5 participants increased the time allocated to reading, suggesting that reading could be increased when praise is delivered contingent upon positive reading-related verbalizations.     

The Effects of Multiple Exemplar Instruction on the Relation Between Listener and Intraverbal Categorization Repertoires

We evaluated the effects of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) on the relation between listener and intraverbal categorization repertoires of six typically developing preschool-age children using a nonconcurrent multiple-probe design across participants. After failing to emit intraverbal categorization responses following listener categorization training, participants were exposed to MEI in the form of alternating response forms (listener and intraverbal) during categorization training with novel stimulus sets. For two participants for whom there was some evidence of emergent intraverbal responding, responding was variable. For the remaining four participants, 32 to 99 MEI trial blocks produced minimal improvement in responding or no emergent responding at all. The results are discussed in terms of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior and naming theory.     

The Effects of Multiple-Tact and Receptive-Discrimination Training on the Acquisition of Intraverbal Behavior

The purpose of this study was to determine whether multiple-tact training and receptive-discrimination training could be used to teach thematically related vocal intraverbals to typically developing preschool children. Multiple-tact training involved teaching a child to name both the item and the category to which the item belonged. Receptive-discrimination training consisted of teaching a child to select a picture card in the presence of a question from the experimenter regarding the item or its category. When neither of these strategies resulted in substantial increases in intraverbal responses, a typical intraverbal training protocol using tact prompts was implemented. Six typically developing children participated in the study. A multiple-baseline design across word categories was used to evaluate the effects of the three training procedures. Results indicated that both multiple-tact and receptive-discrimination training had minimal effects on the strength of the intraverbal repertoire, whereas direct intraverbal training had a more substantial effect. The results provide some evidence of the functional independence of verbal operants, as well as the independence of listener and speaker repertoires. Receptive-discrimination and multiple-tact training may have facilitated acquisition of intraverbals; however, further research is needed to assess how these repertoires might interact with each other.     

The Effects of Auditory Stimulation on Auditory Processing Disorder: A Summary of the Findings

The study's purpose is to determine the efficacy of the Tomatis Method of auditory stimulation as a therapeutic intervention for Auditory Processing Disorders (APD). Forty-one subjects (18 females, 23 males; 4.3–19.8 years old) were evaluated for APD. Performance on standardized tests indicated weaknesses with auditory processing skills. Each subject participated in a 90-hour Tomatis Method protocol and, once completed, each subject was re-evaluated to measure improvement. All subjects demonstrated improvement with skills of immediate auditory memory, auditory sequencing, interpretation of directions, auditory discrimination, and auditory cohesion. Pre- and post-treatment comparison indicated statistically significant differences in the aforementioned skills. These findings suggest that the Tomatis Method of auditory stimulation can be effective as an intervention strategy for APD.     

The effect of joint control training on the acquisition and durability of a sequencing task

Gutierrez (2006) experimentally demonstrated the effects of joint control and particularly the role of response mediation in the sequencing behavior of adults using an unfamiliar language. The purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend the procedures used by Gutierrez by comparing the effects of joint control training with the effects of a prompt-and-fade procedure on the acquisition of a sequencing task. The effects of each procedure on delayed sequencing behavior were also tested. Ten undergraduate students participated in 2 experiments. The results indicated that all participants acquired the sequencing response in fewer trials and maintained accurate delayed responding when the component responses necessary for joint control were directly taught. Finally, when the self-echoic mediation component was blocked, accurate responding deteriorated in 8 of 10 participants.     

The Effects of Truth: Re-Presentations of the Past and the Imagining of Community

Abstract Social memory is integral to the creation of social meaning; representations of the past are central to the symbolic constitution of social groups and social identities. This paper examines the production of effects of truth and power in both official and popular historical discourses in Mexico and demonstrates how representations of the past configure the imagining of community (social memory; official/popular historical discourses; nationalism: revolution; hegemony; Mexico).     

The effects of listener training on the emergence of tact and mand signs by individuals with intellectual disabilities

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether individuals with intellectual disabilities would emit untrained speaker responses (i.e., signed tacts and mands) after being taught listener behaviors. Listener relations were trained via an automated matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure. Following mastery, the emergence of signed tacts, generalized tacts, and mands was tested. All participants met criterion in listener relations training and showed the emergence of almost all relations. Results suggest that teaching listener relations first, through MTS tasks, is a viable way to produce emergence of speaker relations.     

How Kids Learn to Say the Darnedest Things: The Effect of Multiple Exemplar Instruction on the Emergence of Novel Verb Usage

We report experiments using time-lagged pre- and postintervention designs with (a) 4 first graders with learning delays, and (b) a systematic replication with 3 preschoolers with learning delays. Both experiments tested the effects of multiple exemplar instructional procedures (MEI) on the emergence of untaught past tense emission of novel regular verbs (e.g., jumped derived from jump) and grammatically inaccurate but experimentally correct usage of irregular verbs (e.g., singed derived from sing). Prior to the MEI, none of the children could produce regular or irregular past tense forms to pictures that provided simulated contexts (pictures with backgrounds for past and present tense). MEI provided across the picture contexts for past and present tense used separate training sets of verbs to teach children to form regular past tense. After either 1 or 2 MEI training sets, the children emitted accurate past tense forms of the untaught regular and inaccurate, but experimentally correct irregular verbs. These findings provided an instructional history that resulted in the children''s acquisition of past tense for untaught regular past tense verbs and “creative” errors with irregular tenses. Results are discussed in terms of the research on experimentally induced sources for novel verbal behavior and related interpretations.     

国际贸易中心城市崛起的经验与启示

通过观察并研究发达国家在工业化的进程中,国际贸易中心城市在其中的作用和贡献,能够使我国在工业化发展的进程中得到更多的启示,同时对我国建设国际贸易中心城市带来许多有益的经验借鉴。     

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Stimulus Pairing Observation Procedure and Multiple Exemplar Instruction on Tact and Listener Responses in Children with Autism

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - The stimulus pairing observation procedure (SPOP) combined with multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) has been shown to be effective with typically developing...     

新产业空间的崛起及其对上海大都市区空间组织的影响

本文以劳动空间分工理论为分析工具,着重从理论和实证两个方面分析上海市郊区工业园作为一种新产业空间的崛起,进而探讨其对上海大都市区空间组织的影响。     

Cohort Differences and the Marriage Premium: Emergence of Gender‐Neutral Household Specialization Effects

Using fixed‐effects models and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 data, we compared cohort, gender, and household specialization differences in the marriage premium. Do these premiums (a) persist among millennials, (b) reflect changing selection into marriage across cohorts, and (c) differ by the gender division of spousal work hours? Despite declining gender‐traditional household specialization, the millennial cohort garnered larger marriage premiums for women and men. Positive selection explained millenial women's marriage premiums, but less of men's. Household specialization mattered only among millennials, where it is gender neutral: Male and female breadwinners earned significantly larger marriage premiums, whereas husbands and wives specializing in nonmarket work earned no premium, or even penalties, when employed. Results show increasing disadvantage among breadwinner households, with dual earners most advantaged among millennials.     

Effects of Multiple Exemplar Training on the Emergence of Derived Relations in Preschool Children Learning a Second Language

We evaluated the facilitative effects of multiple exemplar training (MET) on the establishment of derived tact relations in typically developing children. A multiple-probe design across stimulus sets was implemented to introduce MET. Participants were first taught to conditionally relate dictated names in English to their corresponding objects (listener behavior; A-B relations), followed by tests for derived tacts (B-A relations). If participants failed these tests, MET was implemented whereby tact relations were explicitly taught with novel stimulus sets, followed by test probes with the original training set. MET continued with novel stimuli until participants met criterion for the emergence of derived tact relations or after exposure to three MET sets. Results indicated failed tests for tact relations following direct training in listener relations, and marked improvements in derived tact relations following MET across all participants.     

The Occupy Movement and the Politics of Vulnerability

The Occupy movement has generated a significant amount of scholarly literature, most of which has focused on the movement's tactics or goals, or sought to explain its emergence. Nevertheless, we lack an explanation for the movement's broad appeal and mass support. In this article we present original research on Occupy in New York City, Detroit, and Berlin, which demonstrates that the movement's heterogeneous participants coalesced around the concept of vulnerability. Vulnerability is an inability to adapt to shocks and stresses, and it inhibits social reproduction and prohibits social mobility. Rather than specifically discussing the wealth of elites per se, Occupy participants consistently expressed the feeling that the current political economic system safeguards elites and increases the vulnerability of everyone else. We argue that the Occupy movement has reworked the relationship among a range of political struggles that were hitherto disconnected (i.e. ‘old’ and ‘new’ social movements) and rendered them complementary through the politics of vulnerability.     

The British,Persecuted Foreigners and the Emergence of the Refugee Category in Nineteenth-Century Britain

For most of the nineteenth century, there were no barriers to immigration into Britain, and hence little need for the British to distinguish one foreigner from another. Despite this fact, philanthropists, officials and public commentators identified some foreigners as ‘refugees’, a designation that called for national sympathy. How and why did this category emerge? What were its inclusions and exclusions? This essay traces the expansion of the refugee category in the context of British commitments to European liberals and foreign slaves in the second quarter of the century. It argues that, by the 1840s, would-be refugees and their British supporters established a standard narrative from which audiences were meant to recognise particular foreigners as refugees and respond accordingly.