The purpose of this study was to assess whether variations in visual stimulus presentation during tact training would affect efficacy, efficiency, and the emergence of listener responses. Participants included two preschool-aged children diagnosed with autism. We implemented two teaching conditions using an adapted alternating treatment design…

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…

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…

Attending to and tacting stimuli in a situation may facilitate recall of that situation. To evaluate this, we showed varied slide decks of 25 black-and-white stick figures engaged in actions to four adolescents and one child with autism. Ten minutes later, we asked them to name the pictures they remembered. Using a multielement design, we compared…

In the current study, eight college students were exposed to a successive matching-to-sample (S-MTS) procedure utilizing non-verbal auditory stimuli consisting of common sounds. During emergent relations tests, participants were asked to talk aloud, and their vocal-verbal statements were transcribed and categorized as class-consistent,…

From an operant perspective, verbal behavior is multiply controlled by different sources of stimulation, including self-stimulation. Self-stimulation (i.e., responding with respect to one's own response products) is thought to be especially important for verbal mediation that temporally extends discriminative stimulus control. While previous…

Teaching tact and intraverbal responses based on function-feature-class to children with language delays can result in the emergence of untrained relational responses. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of compound stimuli in discriminated operants (i.e., different combinations of hear, see, touch, and taste) on the acquisition…

Deficits in communicating one's wants and needs can have significant and detrimental effects on quality of life. Particularly for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other related disabilities, manding is a pivotal skill that influences long-term prognosis. Mand training is complex and relies on several components to facilitate…

Successive matching-to-sample (S-MTS) with a go/no-go response requirement has previously produced equivalence classes with nonverbal auditory stimuli among college students. When participants are required to talk aloud during posttests (protocol analysis), their verbal behavior tends to match their selection performance. However, in some cases,…

Instructive feedback is a procedure that introduces additional stimuli before or after a learning trial and can result in the acquisition of stimuli not directly taught. Further research may help us better understand the conditions under which instructive feedback is effective and preferred. In the present study, the experimenters…

The autoclitic is among the least studied and most complex verbal operant named and described by Skinner. The descriptive autoclitic is one subtype, which among other functions can describe the strength of the response. If the clarity of the stimulus is one source of response strength for tacts, manipulating stimulus clarity should evoke different…

The inclusion of private events in the philosophy of our science is integral to avoid dualism and remain objective rather than making assumptions about an unseen mind. However, the inclusion of behaviors and stimuli which cannot be observed in an analysis poses obvious issues. One established method of studying covert behavior is to examine tasks…

It is important for children to learn to identify safety stimuli in their environment; however, there has been limited research in the field of behavior analysis related to effective and efficient strategies for teaching these skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Although previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of…

We examined emergent tact control following stimulus pairing, using 2 different stimulus presentation arrangements. In the word-first condition, presentation of the auditory stimulus preceded the visual stimulus, and in the image-first condition, the visual stimulus preceded the auditory stimulus. Eight children (2-5 years old) participated. In…

The purpose of the current study was to extend the findings on the use of the go/no-go successive matching-to-sample (S-MTS) procedure to establish auditory equivalence classes. Eight college students learned to conditionally relate nonverbal auditory stimuli into three, 3-member classes. Following training, all participants met the emergence…