Association for Behavior Analysis International

This symposium will focus on the relationship between recent work on naming and recent developments in Relational Frame Theory (RFT). The authors of Study 1 provide an overview of RFT and Verbal Behavior Development Theory (VBDT), and explore points of contact that have been highlighted by conceptual developments in both fields. The authors will argue for the concept of mutually entailed orienting. Study 2 will review existing evidence on the role of early social behaviors on learning names of words. The authors will highlight mutually entailed orienting as a possible predictor for success in listener and speaker trials during word-learning in 24-month old infants. The authors of Study 3 will present a verbal behavioral analysis of five forms of joint attention, including mands, orienting, responding, initiating, and referencing. Implications for teaching will be discussed. The authors of Study 4 will present data on the relationship between bidirectional naming and other derived relations in 20- to 40-month old toddlers. The authors will discuss their findings within the context of the stimulus control for these relations. Finally, Martha Pelaez will discuss these studies in relation to the interaction between early social behaviors and language development.

Behavior analysts and students of behavior analysis

Relational frame theory (RFT) and verbal behavior development theory (VBDT) are two behavior analytic perspectives on human language and development. Despite sharing common ground, the theories have largely been developed independently. The overarching aim of the current study is to provide an overview of both theories, and explore points of contact that have been highlighted by conceptual developments in both fields. Recent developments in RFT have focused on cooperation as the driver for arbitrarily applicable relational responding (AARR), and outlined the dynamical variables involved across the levels and dimensions of AARR. In addition, we argue for the concept of mutually entailed orienting as an act of human cooperation. These developments link closely with VBDT research which has underlined the critical role of evolution, and the emergence of bidirectional naming in language development. We present broad similarities between the two approaches in the types of functional-analyses they generate, and discuss areas for future research.

Coordinated attention between parents, children, and objects is thought to play a critical role in early word learning. However, behaviors that involve coordinated attention, often described as joint attention (JA), social referencing (SR), and gaze following (GF) have largely been defined topographically. Mutually entailed orienting, arguably unique to humans, occurs when the infant orients back and forth between the speaker and the stimulus, rather than simply attending to the stimulus. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the role of JA, SR, and mutually entailed orienting on an infant’s listening and speaking repertoire. Participants were forty infants at 24-months of age who belonged to either the elevated likelihood of autism group or the typical likelihood of autism group. We evaluated listener and speaker responses to novel word learning trials and compared the outcomes with mutually entailed orienting, and JA and SR skills. Results showed that children in both groups were more likely to respond correctly when they looked back at the researcher during an exposure to a novel word. We argue that mutually entailed orienting serves to establish the Relating, Orienting, and Evoking (ROE) unit, and offer a behavior analytic perspective on the pre-requisites for early word learning.

Joint attention has conventionally been defined by its topography. As a result, behavioral definitions of joint attention in the literature vary, and attempts to teach joint attention often lack socially significant outcomes. More recently, our attention has shifted to the function of joint attention, leading to questions about our intervention methods. An experiment is presented in which the emergence of responding (RJA) and initiating joint attention (IJA) skills occurred as the result of conditioning adult attention as a reinforcer. Expanding on Dube, et al. (2004) and Holth’s (2005) behavioral analyses of joint attention, we present a verbal behavioral analysis of five forms of joint attention, including mands, orienting, responding, initiating, and referencing. Drawing on Skinner (1957) and the Verbal Behavior Developmental Theory (VBDT), we posit that only responding and initiating joint attention are socially motivated exchanges, whereas mands, orienting, and referencing are maintained by tangibles or negative reinforcement. We also discuss implications for teaching joint attention using a functionally-based approach.