An Analysis of Verbal Stimulus Control in Intraverbal Behavior: Implications for Practice and Applied Research

A common characteristic of the language deficits experienced by children with autism (and other developmental disorders) is their failure to acquire a complex intraverbal repertoire. The difficulties with learning intraverbal behaviors may, in part, be related to the fact that the stimulus control for such behaviors usually involves highly complex verbal stimuli. The antecedent verbal control of intraverbal behavior may involve discriminative stimuli (i.e., discriminated operants), conditional stimulus control, and/or control by compound stimuli. Distinctions among these different types of antecedent control are presented, along with recommendations for intervention procedures that may facilitate the acquisition of intraverbal behavior.     

An Analysis of Autism as a Contingency-Shaped Disorder of Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - This paper analyzes autism as a contingency-shaped disorder of verbal behavior. Contingencies of reinforcement in effect during the first to third year of a...     

Using Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Direct Reinforcement to Teach Vocal Verbal Behavior to Young Children With Autism

In this study the effect of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure was used as part of a clinical investigation to increase vocalizations for two young children diagnosed with autism. This procedure involved pairing a vocal sound with a preferred stimulus (e.g., toy) to condition automatic reinforcement. In addition, this study assessed the effects of a direct reinforcement procedure to bring a vocalization under echoic control following the pairing procedure for 1 of the participants. The results showed the pairing procedure was used successfully to increase a vocalization for one of the participants, and the vocalization was brought under echoic control.     

Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Subsequent Mand Acquisition of Children with Various Levels of Verbal Repertoires

Effects of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on the subsequent acquisition of mand operants were investigated. An attempt was made to shape novel sounds that emerged through the pairing procedure into a mand. Six children, aged two to five years, with moderate to severe language and communication delays, participated. Two conditions were used following the pairing condition: postpairing and direct reinforcement. The emergence of mands was compared across these conditions. An additional analysis was made of the relation between participants'' baseline verbal repertoires and the effects of the pairing and the emergence of mands. Results indicate the possibility of stimulus control from a stimulus-stimulus pairing to mand as shown in two of the participants who had demonstrated high rates of vocal play and low to no verbal repertoire prior to this study. Target vocal sounds during postpairing and direct reinforcement condition remained at zero to low levels for participants with high verbal repertoire and little vocal play, warranting future studies on relations between the pre-existing verbal repertoire and the effectiveness of stimulus-stimulus pairing.     

A Comparison of Topography-based and Selection-based Verbal Behavior in Typically Developed Children and Developmentally Disabled Persons with Autism

This study is a replication of Sundberg and Sundberg (1990) that compared topography-based verbal behavior with selection-based verbal behavior in terms of acquisition, accuracy, and testing for the emergence of a new verbal relation. Participants were three typical children and three developmentally disabled persons with autism. The study sought to determine which paradigm (topography-based or selection-based) resulted in more rapid acquisition of tacts and intraverbals, which was associated with the fewest errors, and which paradigm resulted in the emergence of the highest number of new verbal relations. The results of the study showed that the six participants performed quite differently from one another. Most importantly, the results from the person with autism contradicted previous findings favoring selection-based verbal behavior over topography-based approaches for teaching verbal behavior to low-functioning individuals.     

Assessing Transfer of Stimulus Control Procedures Across Learners With Autism

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of 2 transfer of stimulus control procedures to teach tacting to individuals with autism. Five participants with differing verbal skills were assessed by a subset of the ABLLS prior to intervention, then were taught 36 previously unknown tacts using the receptive-echoic-tact (r-e-t) and echoic-tact (e-t) transfer procedures. Each transfer method was used separately to establish different tacts, in a multiple baseline design across tacts for 3 sets of stimuli. The results showed that 4 out of 5 participants (who demonstrated mands, tacts, echoics, and sometimes intraverbals prior to the study) acquired all targeted tacts when either r-e-t or e-t training was presented. One participant (who emitted no verbal operants at the onset of the study) did not acquire any tacts. While some participants appeared to learn more quickly with one transfer method, neither method emerged as more efficient with learners with fewer or more extensive verbal skills. The results indicate that both transfer methods promoted the acquisition of tacts for learners with autism with at least minimal verbal skills.     

Teaching Tacting of Private Events Based on Public Accompaniments: Effects of Contingencies,Audience Control,and Stimulus Complexity

Our current understanding of the role of private events in the science of behavior is based largely on Skinner’s natural science interpretation of private events. Skinner described public accompaniments as one source of control for a verbal community to differentially reinforce verbal behavior regarding private events. In this study, we developed an experimental analogue to study variables influencing tacting of private events. The participant had exclusive access to one set of stimuli (the private stimuli), and the experimenter attempted to teach tacts for private stimuli based on their correspondence with public stimuli accessible to both the experimenter and participant. Results of experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that reports of private stimuli were a function of degree of public-private correspondence, reinforcement contingency, and audience control. In some cases, we encountered reports controlled exclusively by public stimuli. Results of experiment 3 showed that public control was less likely when public stimuli were more complex and the experimenter had a unique behavioral history with respect to those stimuli that was not shared by the learner. The orderly patterns of data obtained suggest that analogue arrangements might be a useful, and even necessary, starting point for experimental investigations of how private events may enter into the analysis of behavior.     

Evaluating Stimulus-Stimulus Pairing and Direct Reinforcement in the Establishment of an Echoic Repertoire of Children Diagnosed with Autism

Many children with autism do not imitate adult vocalizations, an important skill in learning to talk. Pairing adult vocalizations with preferred stimuli has been shown to increase free-operant vocalizations but effects are temporary; thus, direct reinforcement may be necessary to establish durable vocal behaviors. In Experiment 1, directly reinforced echoic responses did not increase following stimulus-stimulus pairings in three children with autism. Similarly, pairings did not increase free-operant vocalizations in Experiment 2, a replication of Miguel et al. (2002). Experiment 3 demonstrated that shaping increased vowel frequency for one participant. Results suggest that variables are yet to be delineated that influence effectiveness of a stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure on vocalization frequency and acquisition of a verbal operant following such pairings.     

Autism as a Contingency-Shaped Disorder of Verbal Behavior: Evidence Obtained and Evidence Needed

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Drash and Tudor’s argument that autism is a contingency-shaped disorder of verbal behavior is logical and consistent with behavioral principles, but the...     

Conditional Discrimination in the Intraverbal Relation: A Review and Recommendations for Future Research

Conditional discrimination is inherent in the intraverbal relation when one verbal stimulus alters the evocative effect of another verbal stimulus and they collectively evoke an intraverbal response. Rarely in research on conditional discriminations have both conditional and discriminative stimuli been vocal verbal and rarely have the responses been topography-based. Making conditional discriminations in intraverbal behavior is a repertoire that is often delayed in children with autism and other developmental disabilities. Reviewed in this paper is research on teaching intraverbal behavior, auditory conditional discriminations, and restricted stimulus control. The purpose of these reviews is to identify the extent to which previous researchers examined conditional discriminations in the intraverbal relation and to recommend directions for research in this area.     

The Effect of Joint Control Training on the Performance of Multiply Controlled Behavior: A Systematic Literature Review Relevant to Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Developmental Disabilities

Skinner (1957) differentiated the roles of the speaker and the listener in a verbal encounter. Although not extensively emphasized, Skinner suggested an individual often behaves verbally even when responding as a listener. Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often display the absence of important, and basic verbal repertoires that limit their ability to engage in a variety of social skills or problem-solving skills. Joint control suggests that multiply controlled verbal responding involves functional control of two 2 or more stimuli or verbal operants. This systematic literature review provides a summary of publications specifying the relation and implications of the analysis of joint control and joint control training in the acquisition of multiply controlled, non-speaker behaviors (e.g., selection-based behavior; , sequencing behavior). The synthesis suggests that joint control training presents as a promising analytic tool in guiding interventions to teach complex, multiply controlled verbal and non-verbal repertoires to children diagnosed with autism ASD and/or other developmental disabilities. Recommendations for future research in joint control, as well as the implementation of joint control training, are provided.

     

The Effects of a Delay of Noncontingent Reinforcement during a Pairing Procedure in the Development of Stimulus Control of Automatically Reinforced Vocalizations

Children with autism and related disabilities frequently fail to develop echoic repertoires. Among the ways in which treatment approaches vary is the extent to which automatic reinforcement is utilized. The present experiment was designed to test the efficacy of a procedure that incorporates automatic reinforcement and socially mediated reinforcement in the development of an echoic repertoire. The implementation of this treatment package resulted in an increase in the vocal play and echoic behavior for two participants, each of whom had very limited verbal repertoires. The study was conducted as a multiple probe across sounds design. Vocal play for Participant 1 increased from baseline rates as low as .2 per min to 4.5 per min during treatment, and her percent correct echoic behavior increased from 0% to at least 90% on both sounds. Participant 2 showed rapid gains in echoic control on one sound before requiring dismissal from the study. Interobserver agreement on the occurrence of target vocals equaled 100%. The results of this study have implications for which procedures to use in the establishment of echoic, echoic mand, and mand repertoires.     

A Functional Analysis of Non-Vocal Verbal Behavior of a Young Child With Autism

The functions of an American Sign Language response were experimentally evaluated with a young boy diagnosed with autism. A functional analysis procedure based on that reported by Lerman et al. (2005) was used to evaluate whether the target sign response would occur under mand, tact, mimetic, or control conditions. The target sign was observed most often in the mand and mimetic test conditions, very seldom in the tact test condition, and never in the control condition. These results support those reported by Lerman et al. and extend previous research by evaluating a non-vocal verbal response using a brief multi-element arrangement with a single control condition. The implications for language assessment and suggestions for future research are discussed.     

Is the Source of Reinforcement for Naming Multiple Conditioned Reinforcers for Observing Responses?

Naming refers to the incidental acquisition of word-object relations as listener and speaker without explicit reinforcement. To investigate possible sources of reinforcement for naming, we examined the effects of a procedure for conditioning reinforcement for observing responses on the emergence of naming in children who previously lacked it. The participants were three 5- to 7-year-old children with and without diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder. During the intervention, either visual or auditory stimuli were first conditioned as reinforcers for observing responses. Then, neutral visual or auditory stimuli were paired with the conditioned visual or auditory stimuli until both visual and auditory stimuli acquired reinforcing properties for observing. Following this intervention, the participants demonstrated naming of stimuli that had been used in pretests for naming, as well as on a novel set of stimuli. We observed increases in echoic responding in conjunction with the emergence of naming and conditioned reinforcement for both observing responses. We interpret the data as suggesting that listener and speaker repertoires are joined for naming only when both visual and auditory stimuli reinforce the observing responses of looking and listening simultaneously.     

Generalized Reflexive Responding and Cross-Modal Tactile Transfer of Stimulus Function in Children with Autism

We sought to evaluate the efficacy of successive matching training for establishing generalized reflexive matching across 4 children with autism. In Experiment 1, differential reinforcement with delay fading was efficacious in establishing “yes” and “no” matching and nonmatching responses in 2 participants when 2 identical or nonidentical picture stimuli were presented. In addition, emergent visual–visual reflexive relational responses were observed using novel picture stimuli in a transfer test phase. In Experiment 2, differential reinforcement alone was efficacious in establishing matching and nonmatching responses in the other 2 participants when 2 identical or nonidentical objects were presented. Transfer to identical objects presented through touch (i.e., tactile discrimination) was additionally observed for both participants. Procedures in the study were adapted from the PEAK Relational Training System to aid in clinical replication, and the translational results have implications for language training with individuals with autism.     

Using a lag schedule to increase variability of verbal responding in an individual with autism

Research has shown that reinforcing novel behaviors can increase the number of different ways that an individual behaves (Goetz & Baer, 1973; Pryor, Haag, & O'Reilly, 1969). However, it was not until more recently that researchers began to consider variability to be a reinforceable operant in and of itself (Neuringer, 2002). More specifically, Neuringer suggested that variability can be taught using a Lag x schedule of reinforcement, in which x refers to the number of previous responses from which the current response must differ in order for reinforcement to occur (Page & Neuringer, 1985). The purpose of the present study was to extend one of the first studies of a Lag x schedule on verbal responses with human subjects (Lee, McComas, & Jawor, 2002), by increasing the lag criteria while attempting to address some of methodological limitations of the study. The participant was a 7-year-old male with autism. A changing criterion design was used and results showed that 3 novel responses were acquired and varied according to the lag schedule of reinforcement.     

An Evaluation of Two Tact-Training Procedures on Acquired Tacts and Tacting During Play

A common practice in tact training is to include a supplemental verbal stimulus (e.g., “What is it?”) in addition to the presentation of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus. Previous literature has suggested that this supplemental verbal stimulus can impede acquisition and generalization relative to the presentation of the object alone, as it may establish faulty stimulus control or decrease spontaneous tacting. Research has yet to compare these 2 training methods on the generalization of learned tacts to more naturalistic, play-based environments. The present study evaluated the use of “What is it?” compared to the presentation of only the nonverbal discriminative stimulus on tact acquisition among 3 children with autism spectrum disorder and the extent to which these training procedures led to tacting in a play-based setting following discrete-trial training. Overall, participants learned to tact stimuli under both conditions, and all participants demonstrated generalization of tacts in a play-based setting. Recommendations for the development and evaluation of naturalistic posttraining assessment are discussed.     

Verbal Mistreatment of the Elderly

Elder mistreatment is expected to rise with the aging of the American population. To date, the association between specific forms of mistreatment and decreased quality of life is poorly understood. The aim of the present study was to explore the association between verbal mistreatment among elderly individuals and depression and quality of life. A sample of 142 older adults (40% male) aged 65 or over was enrolled from a large medical practice and academic dental practice, mean (SD) age = 74.88 (6.98) years. Thirty-eight percent of the sample reported verbal mistreatment. Controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and depression, verbal mistreatment was a significant predictor of social functioning (r = –.28, p < .001), mental health (r = –.25, p < .001), and role limitations OR = 3.02, 95% CI [1.34–6.77]. The present findings highlight the prevalence of verbal mistreatment of elderly individuals.     

The “Silent Dog” Method: Analyzing the Impact of Self-Generated Rules When Teaching Different Computer Chains to Boys with Autism

The purpose of the study was to extend the literature on verbal self-regulation by using the “silent dog” method to evaluate the role of verbal regulation over nonverbal behavior in 2 individuals with autism. Participants were required to talk-aloud while performing functional computer tasks.Then the effects of distracters with increasing demands on target behavior were evaluated as well as whether self-talk emitted by Participant 1 could be used to alter Participant 2''s performance. Results suggest that participants'' tasks seemed to be under control of self-instructions, and the rules generated from Participants 1''s self-talk were effective in teaching computer skills to Participant 2. The silent dog method was useful in evaluating the possible role of self-generated rules in teaching computer skills to participants with autism.