This study examined the functional independence of mand and tact operants in normally developing children and evaluated the role of S[superscript D]s in demonstrating emergent responding. In Experiment 1, 4 children aged 4 to 5 years, were trained to mand or tact using left/right relations, then were tested for the emergence of the untaught…

This study investigated the effect of matching-to-sample and mimetic-relations teaching on the emergence of signed tact and textual repertoire through a multiple-baseline design, across three groups of three words in children with and without hearing impairments and with no reading repertoire. Following mimetic-relations teaching and the…

Participants were 2 typically developing children, aged 9 and 10 years, and 1 child, aged 4 years, with a reported severe speech delay. Five specific mand functions were trained such that participants learned to mand for the delivery or removal of tokens to the value of -2, -1, 0, +1, and +2, by presenting an arbitrary stimulus (A1, A2, A3, A4,…

This study examined the effects of a modified antecedent during probes for emergent mands following listener versus tact training for children with autism. Eight students, aged 7 to 11, were trained to respond to 3 sets of relational responses (front/back, left/right, on/under), each assigned a nonsense label. Three training types were evaluated:…

The year 2007 marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner's "Verbal Behavior", a book that by Skinner's own account was his most important. The received view, however, is that a devastating review by a young linguist not only rendered Skinner's interpretation of language moot but was also a major factor in ending the hegemony…

Response variability, a fundamental characteristic of behavior, may be in some cases an induced effect of reinforcement schedules. Research on schedule-induced response variability has shown that continuous reinforcement results in less variability than intermittent reinforcement schedules. Studies on the effects of intermittency of reinforcement,…