The current case study sought to evaluate if reinstatement, the recurrence of previously extinguished behavior following delivery of reinforcers (Reid, "British Journal of Psychology", 49, 202-209, 1958), would be observed in manding, an appropriate communication response, and to evaluate if reinstatement would be observed across…

Children with autism spectrum disorder often exhibit difficulties in social communication and interaction. Those who do not acquire functional communication to effectively express wants and needs often are at a higher risk of displaying challenging behaviors. Mand training is recognized as an evidence-based intervention for teaching communication…

Functional communication training is a widely used function-based intervention to replace inappropriate and severe challenging behavior (Tiger et al., 2008). When considering which FCR topography to include in functional communication training, clinicians may consider several factors such as response effort, social significance, and preference.…

Interventions related to differential reinforcement (DR) are among the most frequently used within the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA). However, certain conditions can inhibit the level at which effects of these interventions maintain upon treatment challenges or generalize across contexts. This can result in the relapse, or recurrence of…

Abrupt discontinuation of functional communication training can cause resurgence of challenging behavior. Teaching multiple alternative responses in sequence ("serial training") may reduce resurgence, relative to teaching a single alternative. However, previous evaluations of serial training included a different number of response…

There is a growing body of evidence supporting the use of telehealth to provide parent training in behaviour analytic interventions and researchers have begun to focus on international demonstrations of this model. The current study assessed the efficacy of a training package focused on naturalistic teaching strategies designed to upskill parents…

For children with developmental or language delays, mand interventions have been identified as an integral part of educational programming (e.g., Greer & Ross, 2008; Shafer, 1994; Sundberg & Michael, 2001). Mands, which are the most elementary forms of verbal behavior, allow individuals to begin to contact social contractual contingencies;…

Members (behaviors) of a response class are equivalent in that they produce the same functional reinforcer. Oftentimes, some members of a response class occur at higher rates than others. This can be problematic when the members that occur at high rates are socially inappropriate (e.g., self-injury, aggression, or disruption). The participant in…

In the present essay, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", I stand by and defend the judgment I expressed in my article "The Long Goodbye: Why B. F. Skinner's 'Verbal Behavior' Is Alive and Well on the 50th Anniversary of Its Publication" (2008c)--that Skinner's…

Access to early intensive behavioral intervention for children with autism spectrum disorder is commonly recommended. Intervention programs may include high rates of instructional trials, which may evoke escape-maintained problem behavior. Recent research on "pairing" or "rapport-building" interventions have sought to reduce…

More is known about how to reduce challenging behavior with functional communication training (FCT) than how to mitigate its resurgence during or following a course of treatment. Research suggests reinforcing mand variability during FCT may mitigate the resurgence of challenging behavior, but validated procedures for reinforcing mand variability…

Individuals with developmental disabilities often do not develop vocal repertoires, thus requiring the use of augmentative devices. Teaching caregivers to conduct communication training with their children may be one way to foster communication with their device in the natural environment. This study replicates Rosales, Stone and Rehfeldt (2009),…

Various types of augmentative and alternative communication systems have been successfully used to enable functional communication in children with developmental disabilities. The effects of such systems on natural speech production have also been investigated, but few studies have explored the effects of specific procedures aim at inducing…

This article questions whether social justice can live within the structural racism present in the field of evaluation. Structural racism refers to the totality of ways in which societies foster racial discrimination through mutually reinforcing systems of housing, education, employment, earnings, benefits, credit, media, health care, and criminal…

Most verbal behavior curricula for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) focus on teaching multiple mands during the early stages of training (e.g., picture exchange communication system; Bondy & Frost, 1994). However, few, if any, of those curricula train children with ASD to differentially mand only for reinforcers that are reasonable…