Association for Behavior Analysis International

Gendered behaviors can be expressed as verbal behavior. Having access to self-editing behaviors can provide additional information about a verbal episode. A software that is an experimental analogue of social media model represents a promising avenue for studying verbal behavior. A multielement design was employed to investigate the effects of female and male audiences (i.e., independent variables) on gender biased verbal behavior and self-editing using an analogue online chat. Dependent variables included self-editing, disagreeing, interrupting, and pressuring. A software program was developed. Participants were 28 typically developing adults. They were instructed to interact with confederates by playing cooperative games. Differentiated responding across genders for disagreeing, interrupting, and pressuring was observed for 19, 14, and 13 participants, respectively. Covert disagreeing was emitted more frequently in the presence of male confederates. Covert pressuring was emitted more frequently in the presence of female confederates.

There is limited research on teaching individuals how to actively listen and then use this information in subsequent conversations. Listeners must discriminate topics the conversation partner is interested in and enjoys discussing, and to avoid topics that elicit or evoke emotional responses or may otherwise be aversive. First, we conducted a descriptive assessment of conversations among 16 neuro-typical individuals across 1:1 conversations with a friend and 1:1 conversations with a novel conversation partner. Topics most commonly discussed were work and movies. We also conducted a structured-descriptive assessment to identify how individuals respond to their conversation partner when they initiate conversation on topics with preferred or aversive properties. Data from the structured-descriptive assessment suggest that individuals make less comments related to a topic they find aversive. Individuals make more comments, smile more frequently and lean in toward their conversation partner when preferred topics are discussed. These data may inform research and practice for teaching individuals complex social skills that contribute to an established speaker and listener repertoire that may impact their overall interactions and quality of life.

Children with cochlear implants (CIs) who are readers usually produce more accurate speech when textual behavior than tacts. Equivalence based instruction (EBI) and matrix training can promote auditory comprehension, speech accuracy in tacts and verbal productivity, from a minimum set of sentences taught. The present study evaluated the effects of an EBI module on equivalence relations (between pictures, and dictated and printed sentences), accuracy in tacts, and recombinative performances, in six children with CI, readers and who had inaccurate tacts. Three sets of sentences were phonetically-balanced, arranged into subject-verb-object matrices and planned in progressive difficulty (regular and irregular words, and pseudo-sentences); nine sentences in the diagonal were taught, and 25 were evaluated in recombinative probes. The teaching module was organized into three steps and multiple probes evaluated all relations in EBI-network. In each step, were directly taught matching pictures to dictated sentences (AB) by MTS and by exclusion teaching; and construction of sentences under dictation (AE) by CRMTS. According to multiple baseline between sets, all participants learned the taught relations (AB-AE), increased the accurate tacts (BD), and produced both equivalence and syntactic (intra-intersets) relations. The results subsidies a broader curriculum of sentences for the rehabilitation of children with CI.

During study 1 we taught an adolescent with ASD to pass a “false belief” task using multiple-exemplar training (MET) and prompting and fading. During baseline we presented three different role playing scenarios (RPS) adherent to the “Sally and Ann” test but using preferred characters; the student failed to provide the correct perspective-taking (PT) response. During the training phase we presented novel RPS interspersing oral scenarios (OS), teaching the student to tact the controlling variables of his own behavior and the behavior of the character before providing the PT response. During post training the student correctly provided PT responses for the same scenarios presented in baseline, for three novel OS and for a novel “false belief” task (unexpected contents). During study 2 we probed a problem solving response that implied an applied PT response in the natural environment in a social situation. Consistently with previous researches the student failed to generalize the PT response in an applied setting. Then we taught, using MET and prompting and fading, the problem solving response in the natural environment chaining the PT response to the problem solving response. During post-training the student provided the problem solving response without engaging overtly in the PT response.

We evaluated procedures for teaching one student with ASD a component of perspective-taking: identifying their own knowledge based on sensory information, using prompting, fading and reinforcement. During the intervention we taught him to tact the verbal or non-verbal stimuli that evoked his response and to discriminate between known or unknown information based on the verbal statement provided by the experimenter. Specifically, after presenting a verbal statement with or without salient stimuli to the student, we taught an autoclitic frame (e.g. “because I see/hear/touch” or “because I don’t see/hear/touch”) in response to the question “why do/don’t you know?” We evaluated the clinical efficacy of the teaching procedures using a multiple baseline across test conditions design. After no response in baseline for the three test conditions, we used a different set of stimuli during the teaching phase. After reaching mastery criteria we presented again, as post training, the same set of stimuli used in baseline. The student reached mastery criteria for the untaught sets in each test condition. We discuss how this skill may be related to more advanced perspective taking skills, based on Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior.

Following instructions is an important tool that children need in their repertoire to be able to participate in their community. However, many children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum disorder have difficulty following instructions involving multiple steps. Joint control training is an effective way of teaching children to follow complex instructions and has been shown to generalize across instructions (Causin, Albert, Carbone, & Sweeny-Kerwin, 2013). Joint control occurs when a response is emitted from the control of two separate, but simultaneously available, stimuli. When an instruction is given, the individual engages in a rehearsal response while simultaneously tacting stimuli in the environment. Once the rehearsal and the tact have point-to-point correspondence, a selection is made (Lowenkron, 1998). Joint control training with 3-step instructions was evaluated with a 5-year-old with autism. The participant was taught to rehearse the instruction prior to responding. Following training, novel instructions were given. Results confidently demonstrate that upon implementation of joint control training, the participant was able to accurately follow trained instructions and novel instructions. Joint control training has the potential to add a skillset into a child’s repertoire that can be used daily in the community. Keywords: Joint Control, listener responding, direction following, self-echoic

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of requiring echoic responses during an auditory visual discrimination training on the emergence of tacts in a five years-old boy diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), using an adapted alternating treatment design with pretest and posttest probes. In the auditory-visual discrimination training, the first set with three stimuli (set A), echoic responses were not required during the auditory visual discrimination training, while for the second three stimuli set (set B), echoic responses were required during the auditory visual discrimination training. After meeting mastery criteria on the auditory-visual discrimination training, tact responses were assessed for the six stimuli. The results showed full emergence of tacts in both conditions, although the participant needed less training sessions to master criteria on the condition in which echoic responses were required. The procedure is currently being applied to another children in order to verify generality.