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| Your Client Will Learn How to Learn When You Use Echoics to Shape Generative Verbal Behavior |
| Friday, May 23, 2025 |
| 4:00 PM–7:00 PM |
| Marriott Marquis, M2 Level, Marquis Salon 15 |
| Area: VBC/AUT; Domain: Applied Research |
| CE Instructor: Olga Meleshkevich, M.S. |
| OLGA MELESHKEVICH (ABA Consulting Inc.; Simmons University) |
| Description: The echoic may be the most important verbal operant in terms of influencing the development of other verbal operants. According to the bidirectional naming account (Horne & Lowe, 1996; Miguel, 2016), when a child is told the name of an object, they echo the word and later tact and respond as a listener to the object. According to the joint control account (Causin et al., 2012; Lowenkron, 2006; Vosters & Luczynski, 2020), a child will follow multi-step instructions if they first echo the steps. When a child progresses further, programming should incorporate multiply controlled verbal behavior, such as answering questions about pictures. An effective strategy to teach this repertoire is asking a child to echo the key word from the question (Espinosa et al., 2020; Meleshkevich et al., 2020); in other words, answer with an autoclitic frame (“What does it say?”…“Say moo”). During this workshop, I will guide participants through a hierarchy of programs that require children to emit one-, two-, and three-word echoics and self-echoics to successfully learn complex auditory-visual conditional discriminations. I will show videos demonstrating several strategies to extend the length of the echoic from 1–2 words to 3–4 words, as well as videos demonstrating procedures to teach question discrimination. |
| Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the workshop, participants will be able to:
1. Teach echoic and self–echoic rehearsals. The inclusion of echoics into teaching listener behavior will increase the efficiency of instruction, facilitate the emergence of novel responses without training, and shape bidirectional naming.
2. Extend the length of echoic and self-echoic behaviors from 1 or 2 words to 3 or 4 words. These teaching procedures will facilitate the emergence of novel, complex auditory-visual conditional discriminations and lead to the formation of generative, complex listener behavior.
3. Efficiently teach question discrimination about a picture by following the protocol utilizing the power of the autoclitic frame and the principles of multiple control in verbal behavior. |
| Activities: Workshop objectives will be met through a balanced presentation of lecture, guided practice, video observation, and group discussion. Core content will be taught through lecture and video demonstrations of strategies will be provided. Supplemental materials for identifying language and learning barriers will be provided to support participant learning. |
| Audience: Participants should know the basic verbal behavior classes and be familiar with VB–MAPP. |
| Content Area: Practice |
| Instruction Level: Intermediate |
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