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.     

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.     

Effects of a Differential Observing Response on Intraverbal Performance of Preschool Children: A Preliminary Investigation

Axe (2008) speculated that some instances of intraverbal responding might be associated with limited or delayed acquisition because they require discrimination of multiple components of verbal stimuli. Past studies suggest that acquisition of responses under control of complex, multicomponent antecedent stimuli (e.g., conditional or compound stimulus control) can be facilitated with the introduction of a differential observing response (DOR; Dube & McIlvane, 1999; Gutowski, Geren, Stromer, & Mackay, 1995). The purpose of the current study was to evaluate the effects of a DOR (i.e., repeating the question) on intraverbal responding with six neurotypical preschool children. Findings included that (a) accuracy of intraverbal performance increased when the experimenter prompted a DOR; (b) 1 of 6 participants overtly emitted the DOR for a second relation in the absence of prompts, which was correlated with increased accuracy; and (c) following mastery, response accuracy was variable for 3 participants. Based on these findings, prompted DORs may offer an effective, if temporary, aid to intraverbal instruction for neurotypical preschool children.     

Acquisition of Mands,Tacts, and Intraverbals Through Sign Exposure in an Individual With Autism

Many children with autism communicate through the use of alternative communication systems, such as sign language. Limited research has been conducted on the situations under which sign language will be acquired across verbal operants without direct teaching. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate exposure to sign language on the acquisition of signed mands, tacts, and intraverbals in a male child with autism. Results indicated fast acquisition of mands, tacts, and intraverbals without direct teaching. Results are discussed in the context of future research investigating exposure without direct teaching in individuals who communicate with alternative communication systems.     

Establishing Naming in Typically Developing Two-Year-Old Children as a Function of Multiple Exemplar Speaker and Listener Experiences

Naming is a verbal developmental capability and cusp that allows children to acquire listener and speaker functions without direct instruction (e.g., incidental learning of words for objects). We screened 19 typically developing 2- and 3-year-old children for the presence of Naming for 3-dimensional objects. All 9 3-year-olds had Naming, and 8 of 10 2-year-olds lacked Naming. For the 2-year-old children who lacked Naming, we used multiple-probe designs (2 groups of 4 children) to test the effect of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across speaker and listener responses on the emergence of Naming. Prior to the MEI, the children could not emit untaught listener or speaker responses following match-to-sample instruction with novel stimuli, during which they had heard the experimenter tact the stimuli. After MEI with a different set of novel stimuli, the children emitted listener and speaker responses when probed with the original stimuli, in the absence of any further instruction with those stimuli. Seven of 8 children acquired the speaker and listener responses of Naming at 83% to 100% accuracy. We discuss the basic and applied science implications.     

A Review of Training Intraverbal Repertoires: Can Precision Teaching Help?

Intraverbal behavior is common in conversation and academic and professional settings. Many individuals with disabilities fail to acquire intraverbal repertoires. Some individuals who do acquire intraverbal behavior fail to acquire responses that are functional and complete. Research has examined procedures to establish or increase intraverbal repertoires of individuals with impaired verbal repertoires. Several of these studies integrate a precision teaching methodology with Skinner''s (1957) conceptual framework. This paper reviews the literature on the most commonly examined methods of establishing or increasing intraverbal repertoires. Articles that incorporate precision teaching are emphasized. The review highlights the strengths (including the effectiveness) and limitations of each procedure. The review concludes with a discussion of the implications of using precision teaching to establish or increase an intraverbal repertoire and with suggestions for future research.     

Teaching Intraverbal Behavior to Children with Autism: A Comparison of Textual and Echoic Prompts

Although echoic prompts may be effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to children with autism, the performance of some children may become dependent on such prompts (i.e., the prompts cannot be eliminated). Recent research suggests that visual rather than echoic prompts may be used to teach children with autism a variety of skills and may facilitate independent performance. In the present study, an adapted alternating treatments design was used to compare the effects of using visual (textual) and echoic prompts on acquisition of intraverbal responses (answering questions) by 2 children with autism. The results indicated that the textual prompts were more effective than the echoic prompts. Implications for the use of visual prompts during instruction with children with autism are discussed.     

Empirical Applications of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior with Humans

In Verbal Behavior, Skinner (1957) provided a conceptual framework and taxonomy for the controlling variables of language that defined independent verbal operants by their functional relations to antecedents and consequences (rather than by topography or meaning). Although professional interest in this area has recently increased within the behavior analytic community, Skinner''s conceptual framework may not yet have fully impacted the experimental literature. This quantitative review of the literature examined the studies on verbal behavior that were empirical in nature, concerned with human verbal behavior, and addressed at least one verbal operant (e.g., mand, tact, echoic, autoclitic, and/or intraverbal behavior) within the experiment. The results of this review suggest that a growing body of research exists to support many of the tenets of Skinner''s conceptualization and taxonomy but many areas of verbal behavior research have yet to be addressed. Continued research in this area is crucial for the development and implementation of effective verbal behavior interventions for people with disabilities.     

Further Evaluation of Prompting Tactics for Establishing Intraverbal Responding in Children With Autism

We compared prompting tactics to establish intraverbal responding (question answering) in four boys with autism. Based on the results of intraverbal, textual, echoic, and tact pretests, we compared vocal and picture prompts with three participants, and textual, vocal, and picture prompts with one participant. We also evaluated repeated acquisition with different question sets, and included a concurrent-chains arrangement, in which initial link selections determined which prompting procedure occurred in the terminal link. All the prompting procedures were effective in establishing intraverbal responding, but vocal prompts resulted in the fewest trials to criterion for all four participants during the initial prompt comparison. However, the results were less consistent for the second comparison. The concurrent chains arrangement revealed a clear preference for picture prompts for one participant, but the results for the others were inconclusive.