Mark L. Sundberg

The Benefits of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior for Children with Autism

Behavior analysis has already contributed substantially to the treatment of children with autism, and further gains can result from more use of Skinners analysis of language in Verbal Behavior (1957) and in the resulting conceptual and experimental work. The approach emphasizes a unit of analysis consisting of the relations between behavior, motivative and discriminative variables, and consequences. Skinner identifies seven types of verbal operants—echoic, mand, tact, intraverbal, textual, transcriptive, and copying a text—which function as components of more advanced forms of language. This approach focuses on the development of each verbal operant (rather than onwords and their meanings) and on the independent training of speaker and listener repertoires. Five more specific contributions are described that relate to the importance of (a) an effective language assessment, (b) mand training in early intervention, (c) establishing operations, (d) an intraverbal repertoire, and (e) automatic reinforcement.

Comparing topography-based verbal behavior with stimulus selection-based verbal behavior.

Michael (1985) distinguished between two types of verbal behavior: topography-based and stimulus selection-based verbal behavior. The current research was designed to empirically examine these two types of verbal behavior while addressing the frequently debated question, Which augmentative communication system should be used with the nonverbal developmentally disabled person? Four mentally retarded adults served as subjects. Each subject was taught to tact an object by either pointing to its corresponding symbol (selection-based verbal behavior), or making the corresponding sign (topography-based verbal behavior). They were then taught an intraverbal relation, and were tested for the emergence of stimulus equivalence relations. The results showed that signed responses were acquired more readily than pointing responses as measured by the acquisition of tacts and intraverbals, and the formation of equivalence classes. These results support Michael’s (1985) analysis, and have important implications for the design of language intervention programs for the developmentally disabled.

Contriving establishing operations to teach mands for information.

Many children with autism cannot effectively ask wh- questions to mand for information, even though they may have extensive tact, intraverbal, and receptive language skills. Wh-questions are typically mands because they occur under the control of establishing operations (EOs) and result in specific reinforcement. The current study first investigated a procedure to teach the mand “where?” to children with autism by contriving an EO for the location of a missing item. Following the successful acquisition of this mand, an establishing operation for a specific person was contrived to teach the mand “who?” The results showed that the children acquired these mands when the relevant establishing operations were manipulated as independent variables. The children also demonstrated generalization to untrained items and to the natural environment. These results have implications for methods of language instruction for children who have difficulty acquiring mands for information.

The Multiple Control of Verbal Behavior.

Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner’s Verbal Behavior, the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner’s analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms convergent multiple control and divergent multiple control. We point out some implications for applied work and discuss examples of the role of multiple control in humor, poetry, problem solving, and recall. Joint control and conditional discrimination are discussed as special cases of multiple control. We suggest that multiple control is a useful analytic tool for interpreting virtually all complex behavior, and we consider the concepts of derived relations and naming as cases in point.

The acquisition of tacts, mands, and intraverbals by individuals with traumatic brain injury

Two individuals who sustained traumatic brain injuries from motorcycle accidents were taught several verbal responses by using tact, mand, and intraverbal training procedures. The rate of acquisition for each operant and the transfer to untrained verbal operants involving the same response topography were measured. The results showed that tacts and intraverbals were acquired quickest, and training on the tact produced the greatest amount of transfer to the untrained verbal operants. Intraverbal training also resulted in transfer for both subjects, but to varying degrees. Direct mand training proved to be the least efficient way to generate a mand repertoire, and when acquired showed least amount of transfer to the untrained operants. These results seem to be in contrast with the findings of similar research with developmentally disabled individuals, and may have implications for methods of language instruction for the brain injured population.

Intraverbal Behavior and Verbal Conditional Discriminations in Typically Developing Children and Children With Autism

Individuals with autism often experience difficulty acquiring a functional intraverbal repertoire, despite demonstrating strong mand, tact, and listener skills. This learning problem may be related to the fact that the primary antecedent variable for most intraverbal behavior involves a type of multiple control identified as a verbal conditional discrimination (VCD). The current study is a descriptive analysis that sought to determine if there is a general sequence of intraverbal acquisition by typically developing children and for children with autism, and if this sequence could be used as a framework for intraverbal assessment and intervention. Thirty-nine typically developing children and 71 children with autism were administered an 80-item intraverbal subtest that contained increasingly difficult intraverbal questions and VCDs. For the typically developing children the results showed that there was a correlation between age and correct intraverbal responses. However, there was variability in the scores of children who were the same age. An error analysis revealed that compound VCDs were the primary cause of errors. Children with autism made the same types of errors as typically developing children who scored at their level on the subtest. These data suggest a potential framework and sequence for intraverbal assessment and intervention.

Automatic reinforcement and automatic punishment in infant vocal behavior

Two female infants, aged 11 and 14 months, were exposed to a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with an established form of reinforcement (positive condition). One of the subjects was also exposed to a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with a neutral stimulus (neutral condition), and a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with a mild aversive stimulus (negative condition). An AB design was used with pre- and post-pairing measures. The results showed that after the positive pairing the targeted responses increased in frequency in 75% of the sessions. Responding remained constant during the neutral condition, but dropped sharply in the negative condition. These data suggest that a critical variable related to an infant’s native language acquisition is the stimulus-stimulus pairing process that occurs when parents or caretakers speak to their infants.

A preliminary investigation of the consequences that define the mand and the tact

Skinner (1957) proposed that the mand and the tact differed with respect to their unique antecedents and consequences. The present study examined the specific reinforcement characteristic of the mand, and the nonspecific reinforcement characteristic of the tact. A severely mentally impaired individual who used sign language served as subject. A concurrent-chain with latency measures and choice was used. The results showed that specific reinforcement produced stronger verbal behavior than nonspecific reinforcement, but only when response strength was measured in terms of latency and choice. These data lend support to Skinner’s assertion that the mand and the tact are different operants. These results also have practical significance in that they may lead to more effective work with individuals who have speech and language impairments.

Using Intraverbal Prompts to Establish Tacts for Children with Autism

Some children with autism have difficulty acquiring tacts, despite their ability to mand, echo words, and imitate actions. The current study focused on 2 nonvocal children who had acquired a few mands using sign language, but had repeatedly failed to acquire signed tacts. Two procedures were compared to determine the most effective approach for training tacts to these participants. One procedure (the standard condition) used the general verbal prompt “What is that?” The other procedure (the intra verbal condition) used a specific intraverbal prompt “Sign [spoken word].” The results showed that both participants acquired nonimitative verbal responses during the intraverbal condition but not during the standard condition. One participant demonstrated complete transfer to pure tacts, and the other participant showed a partial transfer to pure tacts. These results have implications for the design of language intervention programs for children with autism who have difficulty acquiring tacts.

301 research topics from Skinner's book verbal behavior

Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior addresses some of the most important issues in human behavior. However, relatively few of the analyses presented by Skinner in Verbal Behavior have been subjected to an experimental analysis. The current list of topics was assembled in an effort to stimulate empirical research on verbal behavior. The list contains thirty research areas with ten topics suggested for each area. A final topic, education, is presented as a challenge to behavior analysts.