A primary deficit seen in many children with autism, particularly those with limited verbal repertoires, is repetitive and rote verbal behavior. This type of repetitive or rote verbal behavior can be stigmatizing and may severely limit access to primary reinforcers. Therefore, it may be beneficial to attempt to increase response variability in verbal behavior demonstrated by children with autism. Previous researchers have focused their efforts on examining response variability in motor behavior or existing verbal behavior, rather than new or recently taught verbal behavior. A potentially complementary intervention for teaching new verbal interactions is the use of scripts and script fading procedures. However, the effect of scripts and script fading procedures on the response variability of verbal behavior remains unknown. Thus, the present study attempted to answer several research questions. First, we examined the effects on extinction on response variability of mand frames used by young children with autism that exhibit limited manding repertoires. Second, we examined the effects of script training on the variability of mand frames, and finally, the effects of extinction after teaching a variety of mand frames with children with autism. Results demonstrated that (a) extinction prior to any teaching was not successful in increasing response variability, (b) teaching multiple mand frames in a successive pattern did not increase response variability of mand frames for any of the participants, (c) extinction after teaching additional mand frames increased response variability for two of the three participants, and (d) a multiple script presentation intervention increased response variability of mand frames for one participant.

One goal of this study was to evaluate the emergence of mands and intraverbals following tact acquisition for individuals with aphasia due to acquired brain injury. A second goal was to evaluate the transfer of shortened latencies as a function of tact training across untrained operants. In Study 1, the dependent measure was accuracy of responding and in Study 2, the dependent measures were rate and latency of responding. Participants for Study 1 were two uninjured adults (pilot) and two adults with brain injury (ABI). Both sets of participants were directly taught to tact up to 6 stimuli. Once tacts were acquired, the response forms were assessed under mand and intraverbal conditions. All pilot participants and one ABI participant showed mand transfer for all stimuli. Tact to intraverbal transfer varied across participants. One adult with brain injury served as a participant for Study 2. Fluency training was used to teach tacts for 15 stimuli. Response latencies were gathered for all operants before and after training. The participant met the designated aim (rate of responding) and showed a decrease in latencies for tacts and untrained intraverbals. Changes in mand latencies varied. Fluency gains showed partial retention. Results from Study 1 provide further evidence for interdependence across operants during rehabilitative training. Results from Study 2 provide preliminary support for the utility of fluency training for verbal behavior after brain injury. Future research should explore the components of fluency training and their effects on the verbal behavior of individuals with ABI.

In 3 experiments, I investigated the role of verbal behavior development in reading and spelling sight words. I evaluated effects of different interventions for reading and spelling sight words and establishing the transformation of stimulus function across word reading and spelling. In Experiment 1, I evaluated the effects of 3 interventions on the acquisition and maintenance of sight words: single topography exemplar instruction (STEI), multiple topography exemplar instruction (MTEI), and MTEI with dictation (MTEI-D). The STEI intervention consisted of reading individual sight words. The MTEI intervention consisted of reading, pointing-to, and intraverbally responding to sight words. The MTEI-D intervention consisted of reading, pointing-to, and writing dictation responses for sight words. I measured the acquisition and maintenance of sight words through 5 response topographies: textual, intraverbal, point-to, sentence generalization, and dictation responses. The results indicated that participants acquired and maintained textual, intraverbal, point-to, and sentence generalization responses across all 3 conditions but only acquired dictation responses in the MTEI-D condition. The results from the MTEI-D condition suggest that the rotation of textual and dictation responses may have established transformation of stimulus function (TSF) across word reading and spelling. Experiment 2 evaluated the effects of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across word reading and spelling on establishing TSF across word reading and spelling. The results from Experiment 2 indicated that the MEI intervention was not effective in establishing TSF across word reading and spelling for all participants. However, the results highlighted the need to further evaluate the role of other cusps such as, incidental bidirectional naming (Inc-BiN) and conditioned seeing, in strengthening the stimulus control for establishing TSF across word reading and spelling. In Experiment 3, I evaluated the effects of a MEI intervention across delayed textual and delayed transcription responses on establishing TSF across word reading and spelling. The results demonstrated that MEI across delayed textual and transcription responses was effective in establishing TSF across word reading and spelling for all participants. The results also demonstrated that all participants increased in their correct responding for conditioned seeing probes. Keywords: sight words, transformation of stimulus function, incidental bidirectional naming, conditioned seeing, word reading, spelling

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This study investigated the relationship between parent implemented interventions for Autism and ratings of maladaptive behavior over a 6 month period of time. Participants were children between the ages of two and six years diagnosed with Autism and their primary care providers. Repeated measures ANOVAs and visual analysis of graphically represented mean scores were used to examine the differences between the parent reported ratings of maladaptive behaviors across two treatment groups consisting of an ABA/Verbal Behavior (ABA/VB) intervention model, a Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) model, and a control or treatment as usual (TAU) group across a 6 month enrollment period. Results indicated a lack of statistically significant findings however substantial effect sizes and changes in mean scoring indicating meaningful differences across groups and over assessment periods was found. Overall, treatment groups were found to have greater reductions in maladaptive behaviors versus the treatment as usual group. Implications, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed. / School Psychology

This ethnographic study explores the nature of the conversations between two colleagues, a more experienced and a less experienced university professor, during the planning sessions, class meetings, and debriefings of a reading assessment course. The study describes what happened during the planning sessions and class debriefings of the more experienced professor, and how the conversations between the two colleagues assisted them in further developing their teaching. Case study methods (Bogdan & Biklen, 1982; Merriam, 1988) were used to conduct and analyze the study. The data included field notes, course documents, and transcriptions of the audio taped planning sessions, class meetings, and debriefings. / Ed. D.

Critical thinking is a chief focal point in all areas of education today. Teachers can create an environment that is conducive to critical thinking through behaviors practiced in the classroom. Knowledge and use of these teacher behaviors by teachers are basic for development and enhancement of critical thinking in students. The purpose of this research was to determine the enabling behaviors used by a selected group of Virginia postsecondary vocational educators that stimulate critical thinking in students. The primary subjects for this study were postsecondary vocational technical educators randomly selected from five community colleges in Virginia. A total of 30 instructors were identified. In addition, 328 community college students participated in the study. Selected conclusions drawn from the findings were: 1. The postsecondary vocational technical instructors of the five community colleges selected for this study are not using the enabling behavior of questioning that"best" stimulates critical thinking or modeling the behaviors found in the literature that will enhance a student's ability to think critically. 2. The amount of pedagogical training (course work) taken by the postsecondary vocational technical instructors, of the five community colleges selected for this study, does not seem to influence the instructor's use of enabling behaviors related to critical thinking. 3. The community college students in this study perceived their instructors to be exhibiting behaviors and possessing characteristics that will stimulate critical thinking. Selected recommendations drawn from the findings and conclusions are: 1. Additional research is needed to determine if the findings of this study are typical of vocational technical community college instructors statewide. 2. Research similar to this study needs to be conducted on faculty other than vocational technical instructors of the community colleges to assess their use of enabling behaviors. 3. Community college instructors need to be exposed to instructors in formal course work or in informal workshops that embody and exhibit enabling behaviors, especially questioning and modeling. / Ed. D.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-29T13:18:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Maria E M P Melo.pdf: 480720 bytes, checksum: a48a5886e07f819a87667330616281ac (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-05-16 / Many studies have been analyzing treatments that intervene with the occurrence of correspondence between verbal and non verbal behavior. Nevertheless, the role of verbalization for the emission of the correspondent non verbal behavior, in the studies about correspondence between saying and doing, is not clear yet. The present work had the purpose to combine some treatments already used by some of the studies, with the intention to verify which would be the role of verbalization in the control of non verbal behavior, using a different target behavior than those that have been used in the most part of the studies, and introducing some modifications in the procedure and in the experimental design. The target behavior was the choice of food, considered healthful for the snack. 23 children between 5 and 6 years, with normal development, that studied in the same classroom of a Council School for children, participated of the study. The experimental conditions were: baseline, reinforcement of verbalization, reinforcement of compliance (experimenter s verbalization), reinforcement of correspondence, reinforcement of doing and reinforcement of verbalization 2. The children were divided in 3 groups, with 8, 5 and 7 participants. The sequence of presentation of the treatments varied between the groups. A of multiple baseline design between participants of the same group was used. The results pointed that during of baseline the frequency of choice of more healthful snacks is low, but the frequency of correspondence between verbal and non verbal behavior is high. During the phase of reinforcement of verbalization, the frequency of choice of more healthful snacks is low, and so is the frequency of correspondence between verbal and non verbal behavior. In the phase of reinforcement of doing, the frequency of choice of more healthful snacks is low only when this phase precedes the reinforcement of correspondence and the reinforcement of compliance. In the phases of reinforcement of compliance and reinforcement of correspondence, the frequency of choice of more healthful food increases for the three groups. In the phase of reinforcement of verbalization 2, the frequency of choice of more healthful food was higher than in the phase of reinforcement of verbalization, being, therefore, higher the correspondence frequency. The present study suggests that verbalization has an important role to provide the target response; however it can proceed from the participant as well from the experimenter / Diversos estudos vêm analisando tratamentos que interferem na ocorrência de correspondência entre o comportamento verbal e o não verbal. Apesar disso, o papel da verbalização para a emissão do comportamento não verbal correspondente, nos estudos sobre correspondência entre o dizer e o fazer, ainda não foi esclarecido. O presente trabalho teve o objetivo de combinar alguns tratamentos já utilizados por alguns dos estudos, com o intuito de verificar qual seria o papel da verbalização no controle do comportamento não verbal, utilizando um comportamento alvo diferente do que tem sido utilizado na maior parte dos estudos, e introduzindo algumas modificações no procedimento e no delineamento experimental. O comportamento alvo foi a escolha de alimentos considerados saudáveis para o lanche. Participaram do estudo 23 crianças entre 5 e 6 anos, com desenvolvimento normal, que estudavam numa mesma classe de uma Escola Municipal de Educação Infantil (EMEI). As condições experimentais introduzidas foram: linha de base, reforçamento da verbalização, reforçamento da obediência (verbalização do experimentador), reforçamento da correspondência, reforçamento do fazer e reforçamento da verbalização 2. As crianças foram divididas em 3 grupos, com 8, 5 e 7 participantes. A seqüência de apresentação dos tratamentos variou entre os grupos. Foi utilizado um delineamento de linha de base múltipla entre sujeitos de um mesmo grupo. Os resultados apontam que durante a fase de linha de base é baixa a freqüência de escolha de lanches mais saudáveis , mas é alta a freqüência de correspondência entre o comportamento verbal e o não verbal. Durante a fase de reforçamento da verbalização, é baixa a freqüência de escolha de lanches mais saudáveis e baixa a freqüência de correspondência entre o comportamento verbal e o não verbal. Na fase de reforçamento do fazer, é baixa a freqüência de escolha de lanches mais saudáveis apenas quando essa fase precede as de reforçamento da correspondência e reforçamento da obediência. Nas fases de reforçamento da obediência e reforçamento da correspondência, a freqüência de escolhas por alimentos mais saudáveis aumenta para os três grupos. Na fase de reforçamento da verbalização 2, a freqüência de escolha por alimentos mais saudáveis foi maior do que na fase de reforçamento da verbalização, sendo, portanto, mais alta a freqüência de correspondência. O presente estudo sugere que a verbalização tem um papel importante na produção da resposta alvo, porém pode ser proveniente tanto do participante quanto do experimentador