Submitted by Jailda Nascimento (jmnascimento@pucsp.br) on 2016-08-23T14:40:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Castelo Branco de Souza.pdf: 2388569 bytes, checksum: 69dbdb03307d3da720dc629cc031c837 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-23T14:40:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Juliana Castelo Branco de Souza.pdf: 2388569 bytes, checksum: 69dbdb03307d3da720dc629cc031c837 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-01 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The present study investigated the efficacy of using the procedure of fading out to teach different topographies of mands, and explored the use of the contingency Lag, in which the participant must emit n different responses from the previous one to increase variability. It also verified if generalization of variable responses would occur in different environments and with other people. And, if variability of mand responses would extend to other verbal operants (intraverbals and tacts). Some topographies of mands were taught to 3 participants diagnosed with autism, such as “Can I get…”, May I borrow…”, “Can I play with…”, “ I want…”, “Give me…”. Before the procedure to teach the topographies of mands started, a base line was done in three situations: with the child interacting naturally with the people in his house (interaction in the natural environment); with a family member interacting with the child creating situations for tact, intraverbal and mand responses; and in the intervention environment. All tacts, intraverbals and mands were registered in the three situations. The teaching procedure started with the presentation of an object, chosen in the preference test in each session by the participant, to see how he would ask for the object. The first verbal model given was the ecoic model. The preference test was planned in a way that in each session a new object would be presented, which permitted to evaluate the generalization of mands to new objects. The ecoic model was faded out gradually until the participant emitted a mand without a verbal modal as antecedent stimuli. During the procedure, the correct responses would be reinforced by receiving the object plus compliments. When all five responses were learned the procedure to install variability started with Lag 1, Lag 2 and Lag 3 reinforcement schedules. After the teaching of the mand topographies, an intermediate test was made; and after the variability procedure, a final test was made. Both of tests checked the child´s verbal behavior the same way as the base line. The results indicate that all three participants learned the five mand topographies with the use of fading out of the verbal model. There was also an increase in variability with the reinforcement schedules of Lag 1, Lag 2 and Lag 3 for all the participants, especially in Lag 3, that the responses were more diverse and more distributed. The children varied the responses using the topographies learned but also emitting new responses (not taught), and responses combining parts of the learned responses. Generalization of the mand responses to new objects occurred, as well as to other environment and people. One of the participants showed an increase of variable intraverbal responses in the final test, and all the participants presented a little increase in the variation of tact responses / O presente estudo verificou a eficácia do uso de fading out para o ensino de topografias de respostas verbais de mando, bem como o uso de contingências Lag (emissão de resposta diferente das n anteriores) para o aumento de respostas variadas. Buscou verificar também se, ao utilizar um procedimento para aumentar a variabilidade, ocorre generalização da variabilidade das respostas ensinadas para outros ambientes e com outras pessoas; e se, ao ensinar variação de respostas de mando, ocorre extensão da variabilidade para outros operantes verbais, testando respostas intraverbais e de tato. Topografias de mando, como por exemplo “Posso pegar...”, “Me empresta...”, “Dá pra mim...”, “Posso brincar com...”, “Eu quero...”, foram ensinadas a três crianças diagnosticadas com autismo. Antes do ensino das topografias de mando foi realizada a linha de base em três situações: interagindo no dia a dia com um cuidador (ambiente de interação natural); interagindo com o cuidador que foi orientado a criar condições para respostas de tato, intraverbal e mandos (ambiente de interação programada) e interagindo com o experimentador no ambiente de intervenção com procedimento similar ao de ensino. Foram registradas todas as respostas de tato, intraverbal e mandos dos participantes nestas três condições. O procedimento de ensino se deu com a apresentação de objetos para os participantes, selecionados em testes de preferência realizados a cada sessão, e o uso de modelo verbal ecoico para que a resposta fosse ecoada. Os testes de preferência foram planejados de forma que a cada sessão fosse apresentado um objeto novo, o que permitiu avaliar a generalização de respostas de mando para novos objetos. O modelo ecoico foi retirado gradualmente até que o participante estivesse emitindo o mando sem modelo verbal antecedente. Durante o ensino respostas corretas produziam o objeto e elogios. Após o ensino de cada topografia de mando foi realizado um teste (sonda) de generalização em que todos os objetos eram novos. Após o ensino de mando foi realizado o procedimento de ensino de variabilidade nas respostas dos participantes. Foram utilizados os esquemas de reforçamento Lag 1, Lag 2 e Lag 3. Após a fase de ensino das topografias de mando foi realizado o teste intermediário e após o ensino de variabilidade o teste final. Ambos da mesma forma que a linha de base inicial. O resultado indica que os três participantes aprenderam as cinco topografias de mando com o uso de fading out do modelo verbal, houve aumento de variabilidade com o uso dos esquemas de reforçamento Lag 1, Lag 2 e Lag 3. Os três participantes apresentaram maior diversidade de topografias com uma maior distribuição de respostas em Lag 3. Além de variar entre as respostas ensinadas os participantes também emitiram respostas novas, não ensinadas, e recombinadas (respostas que combinavam parte de topografias ensinadas). Ocorreu generalização das topografias ensinadas para os novos objetos, assim como para outros ambientes e com outras pessoas. Um participante apresentou aumento de variação das respostas intraverbais no teste final e os três participantes apresentaram um pequeno aumento de variação das respostas de tato

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2017-06-01T13:00:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Stephanny Sato Del Pin.pdf: 1561148 bytes, checksum: 1301b79efce9f4d94d7086a9c79e84bc (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-01T13:00:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Stephanny Sato Del Pin.pdf: 1561148 bytes, checksum: 1301b79efce9f4d94d7086a9c79e84bc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-26 / The cooperation experiments discuss important parameters about the social behavior and the social environment, using the triple contingencies unit of analysis. The iterated prisoners dilemma game was repeatedly used as a procedure for experimental investigation into cooperation by behavioral analysts. The prisoners dilemma consists of the conflicting relation between individual gains and group gains. The combination of the choices among all those involved in the dilemma may lead to: losses for all, gains for all or loss for one while another gains. Such analyses of cooperation may be expanded when another unit of analysis – metacontingency – is used. This study sought replicate the work of Ortu et al. (2012), investigating the effect of cultural consequences on the selection of interlocking behavioral contingencies. Three modifications were made: 1) open groups were programmed – replacement of participants 2) the presentation of cultural consequences (market feedback) was made on a CRF schedule; and to contribute to the comprehension of verbal behavior in the selection by metacontingencies 3) the rules issued by the participants throughout the generations were analysed. Each of the three experimental groups, while in the experimental context, built a “cultural practice” as a form of coordination to obtain individual points and/or points of cultural consequences forecast in the various experimental conditions. Exposure to all experimentally programmed cultural consequences was possible for all groups. Groups 1 and 3 varied in the production of interlacements in initial generations, but on the whole met the required performance criteria, therefore they were consistent in the production of cooperational interlacements. Group 2 produced variable interlacements, the most consistent being XYYY and YYYX, i.e. “competitive” interlacements. The analysis of verbal interactions clarifies the reason behind such production: to obtain more points individually, group 2 coordinated themselves on a rotating schedule, whereby whoever chooses differently to the others would have a greater gain, while the others would have a medium gain, and would not receive any additional gain in the cultural consequence. The participants in group 2 obtained the total egalitarian gains and coordinated themselves with greater frequency from informative rules. Group 3 coordinated themselves with greater frequency from coersive rules and had unequal individual totals. The results of this study suggest that the selection of cooperation standards depends on the individuals consequences forecast in the more “traditional” procedures, but also depends significantly on external variables studied here: the production of cultural consequences contingent on aggregated products and the analysis of verbal interaction for the selection by metacontingencies / Os experimentos de cooperação discutem importantes parâmetros sobre o comportamento social e o ambiente social, utilizando a unidade de análise tríplice contingências. O jogo dilema do prisioneiro iterado foi recorrentemente utilizado como um procedimento para investigação experimental sobre cooperação por analistas do comportamento. O dilema do prisioneiro consiste na relação de conflito entre ganhos individuais e ganhos para o grupo. A combinação das escolhas dentre todos os envolvidos no dilema pode acarretar em: prejuízos para todos, ganhos para todos, ou prejuízo para um, enquanto há ganho para o outro. Tais análises sob cooperação podem ser ampliadas quando utiliza-se outra unidade de análise, a metacontingência. Este estudo buscou replicar o trabalho de Ortu et al. (2012), investigando o efeito das consequências culturais para a seleção de contingências comportamentais entrelaçadas. Três modificações foram realizadas: 1) foram programados grupos abertos - substituição de participantes 2) a apresentação de consequências culturais (feedback de mercado) foi realizada em um esquema de CRF; e para contribuir para a compreensão do comportamento verbal na seleção por metacontingências 3) as regras emitidas pelos participantes ao longo das gerações foram analisadas. Cada um dos três grupos experimentais, ainda que no contexto experimental, construiu uma “prática cultural” como forma de coordenação para obtenção dos pontos individuais e/ou das consequências culturais previstas nas várias condições experimentais. Para todos os grupos foi possível a exposição à todas consequências culturais programadas experimentalmente. Os grupos 1 e 3 ao início durante as gerações iniciais variaram na produção dos entrelaçamentos, mas, em sua maioria, atingiram o critério de desempenho exigido, portanto, foram consistentes na produção de entrelaçamentos de cooperação. O grupo 2 produziu variavelmente os entrelaçamentos, sendo o mais consistente XYYY e YYYX, entrelaçamentos ditos como “competitivos”. A análise das interações verbais esclarece o porquê de tal produção, o grupo 2, para que obtivessem mais pontos individualmente coordenou-se em um arranjo de “rodízio”, aquele que escolhesse diferente dos demais teria o ganho mais vantajoso, enquanto que os demais o ganho médio, e não receberiam nenhum ganho adicional na consequência cultural. Os participantes do grupo 2 obtiveram o total de ganhos individuais aproximadamente iguais e coordenaram-se com maior frequência a partir de regras informativas. O grupo 3 coordenou-se mais frequentemente a partir de regras coercitivas e obtiveram totais individuais desiguais. Os resultados do presente estudo indicam que a seleção de padrões de cooperação depende das consequências individuais previstas nos procedimentos mais “tradicionais”, mas depende também e de maneira importante de variáveis externas aqui investigadas: a produção de consequências culturais contingentes a produtos agregados, e a interação verbal que favorece a coordenação para a seleção por metacontingências

I conducted a descriptive analysis on the emission of vocal and non-vocal social/verbal interactions between 35 dyads of preschool-aged-children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and their mothers. Using previously recorded videos of 5-min isolated free-play sessions between the mother-child dyads, I transduced each occurrence of verbal operants, attempted verbal operants (i.e., emissions not reinforced by a listener), and additional verbal behaviors such as fantasy play emitted by the child, and approvals and disapprovals emitted by the mother. Each verbal behavior was defined as either vocal verbal behavior, non-lexical vocal verbal behavior, or non-vocal verbal behavior, all with a function to communicate. The procedure consisted of identifying each instance of verbal behavior emitted between the mother and child rotating across listener and speaker responses until either no response occurred, or the session concluded. The listener and speaker responses were further transduced into individual initiated conversational units (speaker-listener-speaker rotations). These data were statistically analyzed with previously collected child educational variables and mother demographic variables: child's level of verbal behavior in accordance with the Verbal Behavior Developmental Assessment-Revised (VBDA-R), number of acquired objectives on the Comprehensive Application of Behavior Analysis to Schooling International Curriculum and Inventory of Repertoires for Children from Preschool through Kindergarten (C-PIRK), the Autism Diagnosis Observation Schedule-Second Edition (ADOS-2) severity scores, and the scores on the Vineland-3 Adaptive Behavior Scales-Third Edition (VABS-3). The mother demographic variables were level of education and household income. The results of the study were as follow: (1) a significant relationship was shown between the child's level of verbal behavior (extracted from the VBDA-R) and performance on the C-PIRK, VABS-3, and between the ADOS-2 Modules used to assess for ASD severity; (2) the results did not show a significant difference between the child's level of verbal behavior and the number of child-initiated conversational units. The differences in the verbal behavior exchanged between the mother and child were, however, indicated across the child's form of verbal behavior - vocal, non-lexical, and non-vocal verbal behavior - emitted with the mother. Results are interpreted as parents of children without vocal verbal behavior require parent training tailored to their child's verbal developmental repertoires rather than their chronological age to ensure all communicative opportunities are captured. Educational implications, limitations, and future avenues of research are discussed.

Children typically acquire language rapidly during their first few years of life. Their rates and levels of proficiency vary, but it is clear that the development of one’s language repertoire impacts academic outcomes and future success across many domains. There are both genetic and environmental factors that affect and contribute to one’s development. For children whose vocal verbal behavior is less well developed, it is imperative that we continue to develop and implement tactics and procedures to intervene in order to accelerate their language development. Researchers have identified Naming as a critical verbal developmental capability that allows one to learn language incidentally. Are there different types of Naming capabilities? Do properties of stimuli affect language acquisition? Does the Naming repertoire relate to children’s level of curiosity about the world around them? In the 3 experiments that follow, I examined the effects of 2 types of Naming experiences and varying properties of visual stimuli on measures of Naming. In Experiments 2 and 3, I also conducted measures of curiosity to assess the possibility of a relationship between Naming and question asking. In my first experiment there were 31 participants. I investigated the effects of match-to-sample and exclusion Naming experiences on incidental acquisition of listener and speaker responses in both adults without disabilities and youth with disabilities. I examined the differences between the 2 age groups and Naming experiences. The adult means of listener and speaker responses were greater than the youth means. All adults met criterion for Naming with the match-to-sample experience, and 9 of 14 adults also achieved criterion levels with the unfamiliar stimuli following the exclusion Naming experience. The adult group’s results showed that the group’s Naming repertoire was fairly balanced for listener responses across the Naming experiences with minimal variability, and its speaker repertoire was not as balanced. The youth group’s results demonstrated similar levels of variability across both topographies. The effect of the Naming experience was significant for speaker responses. In the second experiment, I implemented an intervention to try to establish unfamiliar stimuli as reinforcers to test its effects on the 2 types of Naming probes and curiosity measures in 6 elementary age children with disabilities. There were some effects from the treatment, but following 2 intervention conditions none of the participants met criteria for Naming. The participants’ numbers of accurate listener responses were greater than their speaker responses. In Experiment 3, I conducted tests for curiosity and Naming with sets of stimuli that had varying levels of familiarity and complexity for 9 preschool age children with and without disabilities. As with the first 2 experiments, the numbers of listener responses for participants were greater than their speaker responses, and there was more variability in the speaker responses compared to the listener responses. The results suggested that the type of Naming experience or the familiarity level of the visual stimuli alone did not appear to influence the dependent variables, but rather that there may be an interaction among the independent variables. The means of responses were greater with more familiar stimuli following match-to-sample experiences whereas the means were greater with less familiar stimuli following the exclusionary Naming experiences. The results of the 3 experiments affirmed the independence of the listener and speaker components of Naming and suggest that the demonstration of Naming with unknown, unfamiliar types of stimuli may be a type of Naming capability that may not be present in all individuals who demonstrate Naming with unknown, familiar stimuli.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2017-12-13T18:25:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 André Vasconcelos da Silva.pdf: 407291 bytes, checksum: c022b4064ab7bf7e5390618234452130 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-13T18:25:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 André Vasconcelos da Silva.pdf: 407291 bytes, checksum: c022b4064ab7bf7e5390618234452130 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2001-08-31 / Skinner outlined the conditions to inquire into private events in 1945. Two experiments were conducted to determine the efficacy of experimental procedures, which set up correlations between private events and verbal responses, and to dispose of usage conditions of the term “private event”. The aim of the Experiment 1 was to investigate the mutual relations between verbal reports indicating private events and public behaviors (description of contingencies and problem solving). Eight undergraduate students without any previous experimental history were exposed to three experimental conditions: Baseline, Training and Extinction. The contingencies description reports and problem solving responses were recorded in each experimental condition. Nevertheless, in the Training condition, the responses indicating privacy (informative responses) were registered as well. Correlation between informative responses and description responses was established. In spite of it, any correlation involving problem solving responses could not be observed. The purpose of the Experiment 2 was to verify the effect of previous reinforcement contingencies upon the inter-relation between public behaviors and informative responses. Five undergraduate students without any previous experimental history of instrumental conditioning were exposed to two experimental sessions. In the Session 1, correlation between contingencies description responses and problem solving responses was established. The Session 2 was similar to Experiment 1, but the contingencies arrangement was not the same used in the Session 1. Data analysis showed correlation between informative responses and description and problem solving responses in the Session 1, when the participants responses were not under contingency control of the Session 2. Moreover, when the responses were under contingencies control of the Session 2, they were related to them. The experiments 1 and 2 provide empirical evidencies of the correlation between observable events and private events. The results of both experiments also give consent for the establishment of experimental usage conditions of the term “private event” by means of controlling variable detection. / Skinner em 1945 estabeleceu condições para se investigar os eventos privados. Na tentativa de se verificar a eficácia de procedimentos e experimentações que estabelecem correlações dos eventos privados com respostas verbais e dispor condições de uso do termo evento privado, realizou-se dois experimentos. O Experimento 1, objetivou verificar a correlação dos relatos verbais públicos indicativos dos eventos privados, Resposta de Informação, com comportamentos públicos: Descrição das Contingências e Resolução do Problema. Participaram do experimento oito alunos universitários sem história experimental que foram submetidos a três fases experimentais: Linha de base, Treino e Extinção. Na fase de Treino os participantes foram distribuídos em duas condições que disponibilizavam diferentes possibilidades de descrição das contingências: a) condição Grupo Relato a Cada Sim e b) condição Grupo Relato ao Final. Nas fases Linha de base e Extinção registrou-se as respostas de descrição das contingências e de resolução do problema e, na fase Treino, adicionou-se o registro das respostas indicativas dos eventos privados. Observou-se que as Respostas de Informação correlacionavam-se às Respostas de Descrição, porém não foi possível detectar correlação com as Respostas de Resolução. Não foi possível inferir neste experimento quais os eventos privados participaram da cadeia comportamental, devido a impossibilidade de se verificar correlações. O Experimento 2 objetivou verificar o efeito de contingências prévias de reforçamento sobre a correlação existente entre as Respostas de Informação e os comportamentos de descrição e resolução. Participaram cinco alunos universitários sem experiência prévia em experimentos de condicionamento operante. Os participantes foram expostos a duas sessões: a Sessão 1, que estabeleceu correlação entre Respostas de Descrição da contingência e as Respostas de Resolução; e a Sessão 2, semelhante ao Experimento 1, incluindo na distribuição dos participantes nas condições de relato. A Sessão 1 diferiu da Sessão 2 basicamente nas contingências, em que na Sessão 1 os estímulos discriminativos utilizados foram letras e na Sessão 2 foram palavras. Os resultados permitem observar que as respostas de informações correlacionaram-se à descrição e resolução da Sessão 1, quando os participantes não estavam sob o controle da contingência da Sessão 2, e posteriormente passaram a se correlacionar às contingências da Sessão 2, quando ficaram sob controle destas mesmas contingências. Isso para condição do Grupo Relato a Cada Sim. Para a condição Relato ao Final se inferiu acerca da relação de comparação estabelecida entre os desempenhos de Descrição e Resolução dos participantes de ambas as condições. Com isso, os experimentos possibilitaram inferir sob quais condições podem-se detectar correlação entre eventos observáveis e os eventos privados.

Submitted by admin tede (tede@pucgoias.edu.br) on 2018-02-07T18:14:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 UELITON DOS SANTOS GOMES.pdf: 681227 bytes, checksum: aa39200339444f538faecb90562fa738 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-02-07T18:14:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 UELITON DOS SANTOS GOMES.pdf: 681227 bytes, checksum: aa39200339444f538faecb90562fa738 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-31 / The goal of the present work was: to investigate the relations between the independent variables, which in this study were verbal (instructions) and non-verbal (figures and images of objects) contexts and their effects in the dependent variable, which was the descriptive behavior of OBJECTS and ACTIONS in a total verbal episode. We had also a secondary goal: the development of a software for the collect and analysis of data. An experiment was conducted as a systematic replication of the work by Simonassi, Tizo, Gomes e Alvarenga (2010) in order to verify: 1) if verbal and non-verbal contexts exert control over verbal responses in a total verbal episode. This experiment was conducted with ten (10) participants with ages varying from 19 to 25 yeas. Each participant was exposed to 4 different experimental conditions (CONDITIONS 1, 2, 3 and 4) in a singlecase design. During the CONDITIONS 1, 2 and 3 the following instructions was presented: “BURNING THIS TIP HAS BEEN”, being that in the CONDITIONS 2 and 3 the following non-verbal stimuli were presented: MATCHES and a STRING (figures and images) and in the CONDITION 3: MATCHES and a CANDLE (figures and images). In the CONDITION 4 the instruction presented was “BURN IT ON THIS TIP. CALM SIR, STILL ENDING STRUCTURING CLOTHES”. In each condition the participant was asked to write his answers. A categorization of the textual responses as referent to OBJECT or ACTION was used for analysis. We verified a considerable frequency of textual verbal responses that made reference to the related objects (figures/images) and actions. The results were similar to those found by Simonassi & Cols. We concluded that both the verbal (instruction) and non-verbal (objects) contexts, when altered, controlled changes in the participants’ responses across the experimental conditions in a systematic way. / O presente trabalho teve como objetivo investigar as relações entre as variáveis independentes, que neste estudo foram os contextos verbais (instrução) e não-verbais (Figura/imagem de objeto) e seu efeito na variável dependente, que foram os comportamentos que descreviam respostas referentes à OBJETOS e a AÇÃO em um episódio verbal total. Teve ainda como objetivo secundário o desenvolvimento de um software para a realização da coleta e análise de dados. Foi realizado um experimento de replicação sistemática do procedimento adotado no estudo de Simonassi e colaboradores para verificar: 1) se contextos verbais (instruções) e não verbais (objetos) exercem controle sobre respostas verbais em um episódio verbal total. Este experimento foi realizado com dez (10) participantes com idades entre 19 a 25 anos. Cada participante foi submetido a 4 condições experimentais diferentes (CONDIÇÃO 1, 2, 3 e 4) em um delineamento de sujeito como seu próprio controle. Nas CONDIÇÕES 1, 2 e 3 foi apresentada a seguinte instrução “QUEIME LOGO ESTA PONTA AÍ”, sendo que nas CONDIÇÕES 2 e 3 foram apresentados os seguintes estímulos não-verbais CONDIÇÃO 2: FÓSFORO e BARBANTE (Figuras/imagens) e na CONDIÇÃO 3: FÓSFORO e VELA (Figuras/imagens). E na CONDIÇÃO 4 foi apresentado a instrução ““QUEIME LOGO ESTA PONTA AÍ. CALMA SENHOR, SENÃO ACABO ESTRAGANDO A ROUPA”. Em cada condição o participante foi solicitado a responder suas respostas por escrito. A análise foi realizada com a categorização das respostas textuais referentes a OBJETO e a AÇÃO. Verificou-se que uma frequência considerável de respostas verbais textuais que faziam referencias aos objetos relacionados (Figuras/imagens) a ações. Os resultados foram semelhantes ao do Experimento de Simonassi e Cols. Concluiu-se que tanto o contexto verbal (instrução) quanto o contexto não-verbal (objetos) quando alterados, também alteravam sistematicamente o responder dos participantes nas diversas condições experimentais.

McGreevy, Fry, and Cornwall (2014) developed an assessment within the Essential for Living (EFL) manual for clinicians to identify which communication modality should be used for each individual. This assessment identifies an AAC based on the learner’s skills, level of problem behavior, similarities between AAC and vocal community, and size of the verbal community. However, to date, no research has evaluated if this assessment identifies the communication modality that will result in faster acquisition of mands in individuals with ASD. Thus, the purpose of this study was to compare acquisition of mands across a modality identified by the EFL communication modality assessment and two other commonly used modalities. A secondary purpose was to determine if participants acquire mands using the mode of AAC identified by EFL. Finally, a third purpose was to determine if the communication modality identified by EFL communication modality assessment matches the modality currently used by the individual. Findings showed that although all three participants acquired mands across the three communication modalities, mands in the modality of communication recommended by the EFL assessment were acquired faster only by 1 out of the 3 participants.

Relational Frame Theory provides an analysis of verbal behavior involving a focus on the development of relational operants which are seen as a basis for language. From this basis, a framework is provided for establishing relational networks in individuals who lack derived relational ability. Establishment of relational frames may increase the probability of responding relationally to novel instances and use of the specific relational frames during social interactions; therefore, training verbal relations in accordance with an RFT approach may enhance intraverbal responding and facilitate the emergence of untrained responses. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the emergence of specific relationships in the context of intraverbal responding as a collateral effect of training on relational networks in four children with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Two participants demonstrated mastery of derived relational responding (DRR) without training, one participant demonstrated mastery of DRR following training, and a fourth participant demonstrated mutual entailment and some combinatorial entailment. Increases in vocal verbal behavior during generalization probes were observed, although increased use of all target relations was not observed in all participants. Further research is needed to evaluate specific deficits in derived relational responding among individuals with ASD, as well as the correlation between DRR and language ability.

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) characteristically exhibit social communication and language deficits. Natural environment teaching (NET) is an intervention proven effective at improving social communication and language skills. Treatment fidelity is critical for an intervention to be effective. Research shows that training alone is often not sufficient to ensure proper implementation. Self-monitoring has shown to increase treatment fidelity, but performance feedback may be necessary to further improve the fidelity of individuals implementing interventions. Using a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants with an ABC sequence, this study evaluated the impact of self-monitoring and video feedback on behavior therapist implementation of NET procedures and maintenance of the skills during fading. Results indicated that self-monitoring slightly improved fidelity of implementation. Fidelity improved further with the addition of video feedback. The results also indicated that implementation of NET with fidelity by the therapists led to improvement in participating children's verbal language skills.

This thesis compares two methods for studying the problem-solving processes of mechanical design engineers. The first method, verbal protocol analysis, was applied by L. Stauffer to construct a problem-solving model of mechanical design. The second method, timing analysis, measures the time intervals separating drawing or speaking actions during the design process. Timing analyisis was applied by the author to the verbal/video design data collected by Stauffer. This thesis demonstrates that the two methods are statistically related, and hence, that employing two different study techniques enhances the reliability of both methods. The two methods have complementary strengths: protocol analysis reveals the content of the design process, while timing analysis is much more complete. Hence, a combination of protocol and timing analysis provides a stronger measure of the design process than either method alone. / Graduation date: 1992