A Functional Analysis of Gestural Behaviors Emitted by Young Children With Severe Developmental Disabilities

Many children with severe developmental disabilities emit idiosyncratic gestures that may function as verbal operants (Sigafoos et al., 2000). This study examined the effectiveness of a functional analysis methodology to identify the variables responsible for gestures emitted by 2 young children with severe developmental disabilities. Potential verbal operants for each participant were functionally analyzed using a multi-element design. Results indicate that gestures were maintained by access to tangible items or the delivery of information about novel stimuli. This study extends the use of functional analysis to identify conditions under which children with developmental disabilities emit gestural verbal behavior.     

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.     

Intraverbal Training for Individuals with Autism: The Current Status of Multiple Control

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Teaching complex intraverbal responding to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be challenging and often requires careful programming. Divergent and...