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.     

A reply to behavior analysts writing about rules and rule-governed behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - Verbal stimuli called “rules” or “instructions” continue to be interpreted as discriminative stimuli despite recent arguments against this...     

Editorial

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Beliefs, death, anxiety, denial, and treatment preferences in end-of-life care: a comparison of social work students, community residents, and medical students

This study examined cultural and religious beliefs, death anxiety, denial, and medical treatment preferences in end-of-life care in a sample of social work students, community residents, and medical students in a mid-western city of 49,000. Results indicated that most social work students, community residents, and medical students preferred palliative as opposed to life-prolonging care during terminal illness. The three groups differed in cultural and religious beliefs and all three reported a moderate amount of death anxiety. Students reported less denial of terminality than community residents. Implications for personal and professional preparation to provide end-of-life care are discussed.     

Reflections on Verbal Behavior at 60

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - In the present essay, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, I stand by and defend the judgment I...     

Editorial

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Standing on the Shoulders of a Giant: Remembrances of Jack Michael,Part 2

In Part 1 of these remembrances of Jack Michael, we briefly described Jack’s history in terms of how he became a behavior analyst (Sundberg & Schlinger, 2021). We pointed out that he was one of the first to apply the principles of behavior analysis discovered in the experimental laboratory to the area of rehabilitation. In so doing, Jack was perhaps the first applied behavior analyst. In Part 1, some of his former students and close associates from his early years at the University of Houston, Arizona State University, and Western Michigan University—John Mabry, Grayson Osborne, Jon Bailey, Mark Sundberg, and J. Vincent Carbone—provided their personal tributes to Jack. In Part 2, we offer six more tributes that—with one exception, that of Ted Ayllon—provide insight into Jack’s work in the latter part of his career. In addition to Ted Ayllon, these tributes are from Jack’s students and close associates Hank Schlinger, Dave Palmer, John and Barb Esch, Carl Sundberg, and Caio Miguel. The authors provide insights not only into their views about Jack but also into their own lives. Collectively, they paint a picture of people from different backgrounds that all found their way to Jack Michael and to behavior analysis. To a person, they describe how their behavior, whether as scientists, practitioners, or both, was radically transformed as a result, and how they attribute that change largely to Jack’s influence.     

Jack Michael,Behavior Analyst

Jack Michael was the quintessential behavior analyst. Despite his reputation as a theoretician and expert in verbal behavior and on Skinner’s book Verbal Behavior, Jack was actually an applied behavior analyst in the literal sense before anyone had coined the term. Prior to becoming one of Jack’s doctoral students at Western Michigan University, I was a behavior-analytic neophyte. After I graduated and began my own teaching (modeled after Jack’s behavior-analytic method of teaching) and thinking and writing about behavior analysis, I found myself talking and thinking like Jack. He had a similar behavior changing effect not only on many of his other students, but also on others who had the good fortune to know him.     

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.