Skinner´s definition of verbal operants describes the functional independence of the different operants, and research has demonstrated this several times. And in the recent issue of Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Shillingsburg and colleagues published a new study on training Yes and No responding across verbal operants.
This study supports previous findings that responses did not generalize across operants without additional training. The yes and no responses generalized within the verbal operants, but additional training was required for establishing these topographies in within other operants. This study included similar antecedents across operants, which has been supposed to facilitate generalization, but the results of this study do not show this effect.
As stated earlier and in this article, an interesting and important area for research are procedures and techniques to facilitate generalization across verbal operants. This would probably be a great contribution to the behavior analytic teaching for children with autism and others with language delays.
Some days ago I rediscovered the online Relational Frame Theory (RFT) online tutorial developed by Eric Fox, based on a tip on Twitter made by @behaviortank, worth following on Twitter. I have visited and used this tutorial previously, and I can really recommend the use of this great resource.
The tutorial give a easy to understand and interactive presentation of contextual psychology and the basic concepts of Relational Frame Theory. It´s probably the easiest and most enjoyable way to learn about RFT, and it´s free. The tutorial also gives some small examples of the application of the theory, but as this is not the scope of this application this has to be learned somewhere else. But as you by using this tutorial can get the understanding of the basic theory and concepts, it´s really useful and hopefully leads to more people applying these theory into practice.
I have just atending a lecture held by proffessor C. Gillberg on prevalence and incidence of autism spectrum disorders. As this numbers are quite interesting and varies from researcher to researcher, over time and to a certain degree from place to place. But the topic that caught my attention to day, was the use of diagnistic criterias for Asperger Syndrome.
From Gillberg’s talk it again become apparent how big influence the choose of criterias make on the prevalence. Gillberg of course using his own criteria claimed that the DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria not being good enough.
I’m absolutely sure that there is a strong need form better, and as I see it, more spesific criterias for the disorder. But one of the first step toward this shuold be to agree on one set of criterias and develop those….
I have now installed WPtouch so this blog is now optimized for iPhone and iPod Touch. This will of course not affect the regular site, but only if you browse this blog with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
As the first day of the ABA International’s Autism conference in Jacksonville is coming to an end, it clear that it has been a very good conference day. This was of course expected, as the presenters are some of the greatest researchers and service delivers in the field.
But as this is a conference targeting applied behavior analysis, I am surprised that some of the presenters used so much time of their presentation on promote behavior analysis per se. I’m expecting the field among them self to be beyond this by now. We know it works, but need to understand better the reasons why different procedures work, and how to do behavior analysis in an effective, efficient and socially valid way. And we have been getting a lot of this too.
The best presentation in my opinion the first day was Dr. Taylor’s talk on joint attention. It’s impressing work done at the Alpine Learning center. And Dr. Taylor gave us a great presentation balanced between research results and practical demonstrations of the importance of targeting joint attention, and effective and great ways to do this with young children.
New this year on this conference was the panel discussions, with the presenters in the panel. This gave the audience a great opportunity to ask questions related to the presentations, and get some answers not only from the presenter, but the whole panel. It was a truly successful event, and I found that it was one of the most interesting and useful parts of this day.
In that discussion one of the reoccurring topics was the balance of discrete trail teaching and natural environment training. And Dr. Taylor pointed out that the term natural in this discussion is not appropriate. It implies that other training is unnatural, and we don’t want that….. so she talked about training in the relevant environment. I’ll adopt that terminology.
It was also interesting to hear about the great work going on in Canada, implementing EIBI on a large scale in the community. This is interesting for me, as I resemble how we can work in Norway. I have read about their work previously, but it was great to hear Dr. Perry’s comments. And their work on measuring quality in EIBI programs was new to me, something to check out.
A great conference day, and looking forward to the late poster session to night, and the presentations tomorrow.