Association for Behavior Analysis International

We present 4 papers that address new behavior analytic advances in teaching functional reading, writing, and math repertoires across a range of students with and without disabilities. The first paper tests the effects of a behavior momentum blending procedure on the acquisition of textual and spelling responses with preschool students with disabilities. The second paper reports the establishment of conditioned reinforcement of math with pre-kindergarten students on the acquisition of student's rate of learning of new math repertoires. The third paper utilizes a writer immersion procedure to increase student's functional writing repertoires (i.e., to write to affect the behavior of a reader) for middle and high school students with disabilities. The fourth paper used an editing and writing package to test the effects of teaching middle school students with disabilities to write functional math algorithms for solving word problems. The four papers will be discussed in terms of the reinforcement sources for function in verbal behavior.

The target audience for this symposium includes professionals that work in a school setting (i.e., implements behavior analytic procedures in the school setting)

In 2 experiments, I tested the effects of a behavioral momentum blending procedure on the accuracy of component and composite textual and spelling responses emitted by 5 preschool students with disabilities using a multiple probe design across participants. The participants were between 3 and 4 years old and were selected to participate because they emitted low numbers of correct textual responses to words comprised of previously mastered phoneme-grapheme correspondences. Dependent measures in the experiment included blending responses to novel text stimuli, composite vocal blending responses, and spelling responses. Prior to the intervention, the participants were taught to textually respond to a set of known, regular words comprised of up to 5 phoneme-grapheme correspondences at a target rate. During the behavioral momentum blending intervention, participants responded to these words, presented in rapid succession by the experimenter, followed by the immediate presentation of novel words. The experimenter provided a vocal model of the component phonemes which was faded during each phase of intervention. Results for both experiments showed increases in textual, spelling, and vocal blending responses for all participants. These findings are discussed with regard to blending as a potentially critical speaker-as-own listener cusp in the establishment of reader repertoires.

In two experiments, we sought to teach middle and high school students with disabilities the function of writing (i.e., to write to affect the behavior of a reader). In Experiment 1, we compared two writing procedures: writing instruction with learn units and a writer immersion procedure. The dependent variables included structural and functional writing measures for descriptive writing tasks. The results of Experiment 1 demonstrated that both the learn unit condition and writer immersion condition resulted in increases in functional writing repertoires. Experiment 2 sought to use a writer immersion package with learn units embedded to increase student's functional writing repertoires using writing tasks specific to academic subjects (i.e., math, science, and social studies). The dependent variables included structural and functional writing measures for descriptive writing tasks. The results of Experiment 2 will be discussed in terms of effective writing practices and the importance of integrating the procedure across academic areas.

I tested the effects of a writing/editing package on the functional writing for 7 middle school students with disabilities using a multiple probe across dyads design. The dependent variables were 1) functional components of a math algorithm written by a participant and solved by a naïve adult reader; 2) written rationale for why each operation was used and why the problem needed to be solved; and 3) resistance to extinction measures for solving above grade level algebra problems as a measure of reinforcement value. The independent variable was an editing and writing package for producing a written explanation for specific steps to solve a multi-step math problem. The participant as the writer produced a written math algorithm, and the participant as the editor provided questions to the writer so that a rewrite would help the editor solve the math problem correctly. Criterion was achieved when the writer produced a written explanation with all four necessary functional components and required no additional rewrites. The results will be discussed in terms of the importance of establishing functional writing repertoires, and the establishment of "why" when only how to solve a problem was taught.