G-11 Use Skinner's analysis to teach verbal behavior.

 

- Listener responding involves identifying an object based on  characteristic, class, or function of an object.

- To determine the listener's skill set a BCBA must assess whether a verbal stimulus controls a specific behavior or not. This will allow for a good understanding of the learner's skill set as a listener. 

- When there is discrepancy in skill level between verbal operants, this usually tells us that there has been a failure to target each verbal operant during interventions or there was an inaccurate assessment of skills during the verbal behavior assessment. You must assess the effectiveness of each verbal operant because they each individually form the foundation for building more complex language

- a benefit of teaching a combination of listener responding by feature, function, and class is that is promotes correct responding to common SDs found in the natural environment.

- When examining the effectiveness of each verbal operant, it is important to evaluate all of them, rather than just one-we cannot examine intraverbals first as those have the prerequisites of mastery of mands, tacts, and the first verbal operants we teach before they are evaluated. There must be an evaluation based on the skill level required to master each verbal operant repertoire.

 

 

Listener Responding by class

• involves resonding nonverbally to the class-specific verbal behavior of another individual(VBMAPP).
• For example, you ask a client to choose a picture from a field of 3 and ask, "which one is an animal?" and they point to a picture of a cat.
• Identifying an object based on a general category to which it belongs.

 

Listener responding by function

• it promotes the development of correct responding to SDs describing what an object does, rather than the object's name.
• Identifying an object that is used in the same manner.
• involves responding nonverbally to the function-specific verbal behavior of another individual(VBMAPP).
• For example, you ask a client to choose a picrue from a field of 3 and ask, which one is used to brush your hair?" and they point to a hairbrush.

 

Listerner responding by feature

• identifying an object based on a characteristic of the object

 

Intraverbal training

• involves bringing verbal responses under the functional control of verbal SDs that do not have point-to-point correspondence with the reponse. The verbal stimuli do not match. #Q&A #FillInTheBlack
• Manding and tacting are both prerequisites for intraverbals, those need to be present within the learner's repertoire before teaching intraverbals. 
• An intraverbal is then verbal operant in which the speaker differentially responds to other people. It can have formal similarity but its not required. 
• For example, you ask a child, "what color is the sky?" and the child says, "the sky is blue". So, when assessing the intraverbal repertoire, you see the level of control by the verbal stimuli presented, like the question, "what color is the sky?" They are typically the most complex verbal operant to learn, they have prerequisites of the client mastering manding and tacting. 
• Songs, fill-in-the-blanks, and "wh" questions are all beginning intraverbals.
• Intraverbals should be taught in the natural environment, as this helps create generalization and learning. 

 

Manding

• communicating using verbal behavior(picture, vocal) to obtain a want or need 
• Mands do not require a vocal response. 
• Bringing verbal responses under the functional control of MOs.  This is the first verbal operant we acquire before any other verbal operant is taught. 
• The word "Mand" is derived from all of these words:command, demand, countermand.
• Mands are when an individual requests an item or activity that he or she wants. Mands provide specific reinforcement for the individual's behavior that is directly related to an MO. They are the first verbal operant acquired and are essential to behavior management to obtain wants and needs. 
• Mands occur when there is an MO for something and the reinforcement is receiving the item directly related to that MO. Mands are one of the first verbal operants acquired, they are dependant on the MO in that #MOment, For example, if I'm not thirsty, giving me water is not going to give me reinforcement, but if I ask for a sandwich, giving me the sandwich would give my verbal behavior reinforcement.

 

Tact training

• bringing verbal responses under the control of the non-verbal SD. Tacts involve labeling objects that are present within the environment a person is in and produces generalized conditioned reinforcement. The goal is for the client to tact without a verbal SD. #label
• tack is a verbal operant where the speaker labels things in the environment, they occur when a non-verbal stimulus is presented which is the SD for the resonse desired to obtain generalized conditioned reinforcemnet. The SD should have control over the response with a tact. For example, when I show a child the picture of a ball, I want them to say, "ball' when they see it, not "airplane."
• a thorough assessment of a child's tack repertoire will show the level of control by nonverbal stimuli.
• Tacts involve the speaker labeling/naming items and actions that the speaker has direct contact with through any of the 5 senses. This makes teaching private events difficult because the teacher cannot see the SD which is intrnal to the client, there is nothing physical to show the client as an SD.
• a metaphorical tact extention(metaphor) is when the novel stimulus shares some but not all of the features associated with the original stimulus. Example, saying that your watch is dying when looking at a watch. 
• A metonymical tact extention is a verbal response to novel stimuli that share NONE of the relevant features of the original stimulus, but some irrelevant but related feature has acquired stimulus control. Example, saying "bag" when shown a Skittle. 
• Echoics, some tacting, and some mands without verbal prompts would be some prerequisites for tact training.
• When we see tact deficits, we must spend the time to include discrimination training to discriminative stimulus. These deficits usually occur when the non-verbal stimulus does not have peroper contol over the verbal response-it isn't serving as an SD for the child- so we need to teach that relation so they can tact it. 
• Tact training can be combined with mands where you ensure that there is an MO present for your client and then present it to them and ask them a yes/no question about the item and then give them the item.
• Tact training can be taught using NET with items present in the client's natural environment that are relevant to the client's interests and within their repertoire.

 

Direct echoic training

• involves the teacher presenting a vocal SD and then differentially reinforcing successive approximations of the target response(AKA shaping)
• If there are echoic deficits, then you must use vocal behavior instruction time to teach echoics behavior. Echoics are essential for identifying objects and actions - this is a prerequisite skill for all the other types of verbal operants, so you can't skip out on this one! #repeatafterme
• There is a combination of promptig, fading, shaping, extinction, and reinforcement techniques used in echoic training. 
• Successive approximations to a target vocalization are differentially reinforced. 
• Echoics are essential for learning to identify objects and actions, they produce GCR for a speaker repeating the behavior of another speaker. This can occur in the presence of a visual to pair it with the verbal stimulus heard from the teacher- so that the client can echo it. 
• Bringing verbal responses under the control of verbal SD that have point-to-point correspondence and formal similarity.
• The verbal stimulus and the response match exactly. It is a precursor to other verbal operants and are essential in the verbal repertoire. Getting a thorough assessment of the echoics repertoire helps identify potential problems in producing response topographies. 
• An echoic response must have an antecedent of a verbal SD and the consequence is a generalized conditioned reinforcer(i.e. praise, money, tokens, etc.) 
• The first goal of echoic training is to enable the client to repeat sounds, words and phrases that were emitted by others.
• the second goal of echoic training is to establish a generalized vocal imitation repertoire in which the child can repeat novel words and phrases.
• If a client has no vocalizations or babbling sounds, the client is going to start from the very beginning- se we're going to start by reinforcing any and all vocal behaviors this client makes to increase the likelihood they will occur in the future. 

 

 

Augmentative communication device

• PECS stands for picture exchange communication system
• The first stage of developing an augmentative communication device for a client. BCBA should take into consideration is the client's verbal skills and the audience that will help implement the interventions.
• Augmentative communication devices could include the use of PECS, sign language, and proloquo.
• When selecting any intervention as well as choosing an AAC device, the #Effort to respond by the client should always be considered. It should be reasonable to the reinforcement they receive from engaging in the behavior. 
• Consideration when developing an augmentative communication system intervention : chooseing a system that is the least-intrusive and most easily-accessible in the client's daily life, teaching caregiver, family members, and peers how to communicate to the individual based on the system, initially using high-preference items to teach the individual how to use the system. 

 

Verbal behavior

• encompasses vocal and non-vocal behavior./forms of communication(including AAC device use and sign language)
• involves a speaker an a listener, so there's usually going to be another person reinforcing the speaker's verbal behavior. In order for it to be considered verbal behavior, the consequence is mediated through another person to provide reinforcement for the response. For instance, if a child says "I want candy," I respond by giving her candy, so her speaking behavior requesting the candy is reinforced by me delivering candy.
• When planning to teach verbal behavior, each individual verbal operant must be directly assessed and taught because they each serve as the foundation for more complex verbal language. If this is not done as so, there will be discrepancies in skill level between the verbal operants. 
• During a language assessement, the controlling antecedent is the SD that occurs immediately before the target verbal response, which obtaings control over the response that is emitted by the client. The type of antecedent SD helps the client discriminate between the verbal operants to signal which one  to use. For instance when you ask the client, "what color is the sky?" versus when you deliver the SD, "Copy me: the sky is blue." There 2 SDs sould require different type of verbal responses form the client, an intraverbal or an echoic- this shows that the antecedent hols control over the verbal response.
• Verbal behavior is a behavior that is reinforced through the mediation of another person's behavior. There is a #speaker and #listener. EVERYONE engages in verbal behavior. All of the answer choices are instances of verbal behaviors as they all are reinforced through the mediation of a another person's behavior and there is a speaker and listener.