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We describe the clinical treatment of repetitive, stereotypic hand mouthing in a 7-year old child with severe developmental delay, conducted in the context of center-based autism service. The client’s history included use of mechanical restraint to prevent tissue damage and infection. Prior antecedent- and reinforcement-based interventions were ineffective. Functional analysis results suggested hand mouthing was maintained by automatic reinforcement. Response interruption and redirection (RIRD) initially did not decrease hand mouthing, but the addition of contingent protective equipment, together with modified RIRD, was followed by reduction to near-zero level, which was maintained following withdrawal of the intervention.

The purpose of the study was to experimentally model summation in convergent multiple control over selection-based verbal behavior. Eight undergraduate students participated. In divergent–convergent tact training, a three-choice match-to-sample task was used to establish two selection-based tacts for each of five pictorial stimuli. One textual stimulus served as positive comparison for two pictorial samples, the end result being that each sample controlled selection of two textual stimuli and each textual stimulus selection was controlled independently by two samples. Pre and posttest trials included either a single pictorial stimulus or a two-stimulus compound as a sample, and all five textual stimuli as comparisons. During posttests, each compound predominantly occasioned selections of the textual stimulus related to both of its elements, demonstrating convergent control. Textual stimuli were more likely to be selected in the presence of compounds containing two controlling elements than in the presence of each controlling element in isolation. This finding provides support for a theoretically important aspect of Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior.

In topography-based verbal behavior, different antecedent stimuli control different topographies of responding, whereas in selection-based verbal behavior, different antecedent stimuli control the selection of visually distinct stimuli from an array of options. In this article, we point out three variable characteristics of selection-based behavior, highlighted by recent technological developments, that affect its similarity to topography-based behavior: The extent to which stimuli can be constructed from minimal units, the size and composition of the selection array, and the similarity of response-produced stimuli to verbal stimuli that are prevalent in the speaker’s verbal community. Although a distinction between topography-based and selection-based behavior has merit, particular characteristics of a selection-based verbal behavior modality may often be more relevant for researchers and clinicians to consider than its status as selection-based.

The behavior-analytic approach to language and cognition is consistent with parsimony and coherence in explanatory systems within and across fields of science. Some disagreement exists regarding the appropriate composition of the conceptual tool kit that behavior analysts apply to problems in language and cognition, but ultimately these differences in perspective are minor within the context of shared goals and assumptions. This article summarizes two lines of research guided by the analyses of derived relational responding in terms of contingencies or stimulus correlations acting directly upon its components. The two lines of research eventually produced different conclusions regarding the utility of the analysis within the boundaries of the parameters that were studied. Successful prediction and control of DRR should serve to identify strength and boundaries of utility of different levels of analysis, which could lead to theoretical progress.

This special section of Perspectives on Behavior Sciencefollows up on a virtual panel discussion on the role of operant and Pavlovian processes in children's language learning. We present four articles, including two contributed by panelists, that illustrate the explanatory power of operant conditioning processes in the study of language.

We examined the replicability and generality of a previously reported training sequence effect on emergent conditional discriminations in the intraverbal naming task. In Experiment 1, a tact–intraverbal (TI) group learned first to vocally label 6 visual patterns and then to intraverbally relate pairs of verbal labels, whereas an intraverbal–tact (IT) group received the same training in the opposite sequence. Emergent conditional discriminations among pattern stimuli were assessed in match‐to‐sample (MTS) format. Experiment 2 was identical, except vocal tact and intraverbal training were replaced with selection‐based training in which the verbal labels were text stimuli. Compared to the IT sequence, the TI sequence resulted in greater mean accuracy at test (Experiment 1), higher yields (Experiment 2), and shorter reaction times (Experiment 2). Experiment 2 data suggested the TI group's performance might be less dependent on intact intraverbal relations relative to the IT group, but related to participants' reports of visualization during intraverbal training. The results suggest the sequence effect is replicable and occurs in experimental preparations commonly used to study derived stimulus relations. They also provide novel support for the hypothesis that participant behavior during training alters sources of stimulus control available at test.

ABSTRACTWe evaluated the effect of interfering with echoic responses during stimulus pairing on preschool-age children’s responses in tact probes. During stimulus pairing, children viewed presentations of national flags paired with the spoken names of the corresponding countries. In the echoic condition, participants were required to vocally repeat each name as it was presented. In the blocking condition, participants were required to perform the presumed incompatible response of labeling the color of the background on which the flag was presented. In a third condition, there was no response requirement. Emergent vocal tacting of flag stimuli was evaluated in probes. Four of five participants’ behavior during stimulus pairing was affected by the experimental manipulation, but tact emergence varied across participants and conditions and seemed unrelated to the manipulation. The results are congruent with other research on the functional role of the echoic in emergent tacting.

We used a laboratory preparation to evaluate the claim that equivalence‐based instruction (EBI) is an efficient form of instruction due to eliminating the need for emergent relations to be taught. Three groups of college students received training to establish 3 stimulus classes with 4 members in each class. Two groups received either a linear series (EBI‐LS) or a 1‐to‐many training structure (EBI‐OTM group). A control group received complete instruction (CI) that targeted all possible relations between the members of each class. The EBI‐OTM group required fewer trials to complete instruction compared to CI, whereas EBI‐LS did not. The EBI‐OTM and the CI groups performed equally well on a posttest that followed initial attainment of the mastery criterion, whereas the EBI‐LS group performed more poorly than the other 2. The groups' performance on a function transfer test did not differ. The results support the claim that compared to CI, EBI is an efficient form of instruction when it follows an OTM structure. However, they also suggest this efficiency advantage cannot be attributed to the fewer relations that need to be taught in EBI, as the EBI‐OTM and the EBI‐LS groups were trained on the same number of relations.

In equivalence‐based instruction (EBI), a large number of stimulus relations can be established through direct instruction of a smaller number of strategically selected relations. We evaluated the efficiency and other potential benefits of EBI in 2 between‐subjects experiments with college students that compared EBI with complete instruction (CI). In Experiment 1 (n= 50), mastery criteria in both conditions required an equal number of equally sized trial blocks at equal accuracy. Under those conditions, trials to passing posttests did not differ significantly between groups during the establishment of 3‐member classes or during expansion to 4‐ and 5‐member classes. In Experiment 2 (n= 48), mastery criteria were equated across conditions in terms of the number of consecutive correct trials required for each trial type. Under those conditions, EBI required fewer trials to complete than did CI. Neither experiment found an advantage of EBI over CI in terms of facilitating future learning or maintenance of class‐consistent responding. Overall, the results suggest that greater efficiency of EBI compared to CI may largely be attributed to learning assessment practices, but additional research is warranted with additional EBI training structures and trial arrangements.

We examined the effects of baseline training sequence on the emergence of conditional discriminations in an intraverbal naming task. Thirty‐two college students were randomly assigned to two groups. The tact‐intraverbal (TI) group first learned to vocally tact eight visual stimuli using a unique verbal label for each stimulus, and then to intraverbally relate four pairs of verbal labels. The intraverbal‐tact (IT) group received the same training but in the opposite sequence. Both groups then received a match‐to‐sample test involving the visual stimuli alone. On average, the TI group had significantly shorter reaction times than the IT group throughout all four test blocks, even when controlling for intraverbal retention, which was lower in the IT group. Accuracy on the MTS test did not differ significantly between groups when controlling for intraverbal retention. However, MTS accuracy and intraverbal retention were strongly correlated in the IT group but uncorrelated in the TI group. We suggest the effect of training sequence reflects different sources of stimulus control available to subjects in different groups when confronted with the novel MTS trials.

Conflicting recommendations exist in the literature regarding the optimal order of stimulus presentation when teaching auditory–visual conditional discriminations. The present study examined the generality of a previously demonstrated advantage of presenting the auditory sample before visual comparisons (sample‐first condition) over the reverse sequence (comparison‐first condition). Participants were four typically developing 5‐ and 6‐year‐old boys. The procedures of Petursdottir and Aguilar (2016) were systematically replicated with the addition of a prompted error correction trial following each incorrect response. Overall, there were more instances of quicker mastery in the sample‐first condition (four of seven evaluations) than in the comparison‐first condition (two of seven evaluations). A comparison‐first advantage was associated with slower acquisition in both conditions than in the remaining evaluations, and an analysis of stimulus and position bias yielded tentative evidence for unwanted sources of stimulus control.

Research on stimulus–stimulus pairing to induce novel vocalizations in nonverbal children has typically employed response‐independent pairing (RIP) procedures to condition speech sounds as reinforcers. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a response‐contingent pairing (RCP) procedure on the vocalizations of three nonverbal boys diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. During RCP, adult‐delivered sounds that were either paired with a preferred item (target sounds) or not (nontarget sounds) were presented contingent on a button‐press response. In Experiment 1, RCP was compared with an RIP procedure, in which the timing of sound presentations was yoked to the preceding RCP session. RCP produced a greater effect on all participants' target vocalizations than RIP. Experiment 2 demonstrated the effects of differential reinforcement of the vocalizations induced in Experiment 1. The results suggest that RCP may develop vocalizations more reliably than RIP procedures.

Childhood language delays and language impairments negatively impact educational outcomes and quality of life. In spite of previously prevailing views to the contrary, evidence suggests that children’s language acquisition is affected by contingent responses of caregivers and conversation partners, as well as by the other consequences of speaking. In other words, reinforcement contingencies play a role in language acquisition. Decades of ongoing research have documented how to arrange reinforcement contingencies to support acquisition of language and communication skills in children with varying degrees of language impairment. The existing expertise in this area should be leveraged in the design of service delivery models that provide opportunities for effective reinforcement contingencies to operate throughout the day and support acquisition of skills that have failed to develop through naturally occurring interactions.