Newsletter
Volume 31 | 2008 | Number 2
Verbal Behavior
By Dr. William Potter
The Verbal Behavior (VB) Special Interest Group held its annual meeting at the ABAI convention in Chicago—all were welcome to attend. Our purpose at the annual SIG meetings is to provide a gathering for folks interested in verbal behavior research and application, to conduct business related to the VB SIG, to bestow awards and grant monies on winning recipients (see below), and to set goals for the upcoming years.
This past year, the SIG created a new research grant—a $500 award to a student conducting research in the verbal behavior area. Dr. Caio Miguel is the VB Grant Coordinator and can be reached at miguelc@csus.edu for additional information. The winner of this award was announced at the annual meeting; the results will be published on the SIG’s Web site at www.vbsig.org. The grant application guidelines state that this program provides monetary support for empirical research in verbal behavior conducted by students. Eligible proposals are typically relevant to at least one of the following topics: primary and secondary verbal operants, multiple/joint control, private events, rule-governed behavior, language acquisition, language assessment and training, second languages, pedagogy, the verbal behavior of nonhumans, verbal behavior research methodology, etc.
In addition to the grant, the SIG carried on its annual research competition, which is organized by Judah Axe. The competition guidelines state that a submitted paper must be original research in the area of verbal behavior with an undergraduate or graduate student as the first author. A submitted paper can be a contribution of a conceptual analysis, a study conducted in the area of basic research, or an empirical investigation conducted under an applied framework. Submissions are restricted to researchers who are either current student members of ABAI or individuals in their first year out of the school in which they conducted the research. Submissions should adhere to American Psychological Association publication guidelines and be no longer than 30 pages. To find out more information about the competition contact Judah Axe at axe.3@osu.edu. The results of the competition will also be posted to the VB SIG Web site. Dr. Traci Cihon and Dr. Caio Miguel are the new newsletter editors (thanks to Dr. Matt Normand for all his hard work on previous issues). Feel free to contact them with articles or information you would like to see published in the newsletter. Past issues of the newsletter are available on the SIG’s Web site. Traci can be contacted at tcihon@gmail.com and Caio at miguelc@csus.edu. The VB Web site can be viewed at www.vbsig.org. If you would like to contribute your presentations or papers to be available on the SIG site, email Bill Potter at wpotter@csustan.edu. Please include in your email a letter giving the SIG permission to post the presentation. The SIG reserves the right to limit the number and type of presentations that will be placed on the site; we are primarily interested in articles related to Skinner’s analysis of VB, as well as extensions of that analysis.
Dave’s email is reitmand@nova.edu. Dues for full members are $10 for one year and $5 for students. If you need to pay your dues, or would like to contribute to the efforts of theVB SIG, please send your contribution to our treasurer, David Reitman at:
Center for Psychological Studies
Nova Southeastern University
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314
Another goal of the SIG is to support the journal which publishes much of the research in this area: The Analysis of Verbal Behavior. For more information about the journal or to subscribe or submit an article, please visit: https://www.abainternational.org/store/ViewJournals.asp
Finally, the dues for the SIG are kept low intentionally; they are not enough to support three grants and research competitions. The funds for those activities have been generously donated by Dr. Jack Michael, Dr. Vince Carbone, Dr. Mark Sundberg and Ted Schoneberger. If you would like to contribute to these efforts, please email Dr. David Reitman at reitmand@nova.edu.