Acquisition of Incidental Bidirectional Naming: Isolating the Effects of Probing and Mixed-Operant Instruction

We tested the effects of teaching an auditory match to sample repertoire on the emergence of the listener half of the verbal developmental cusp of Naming for 2-preschool students with language-based disabilities. The study was conducted in special education CABAS[R] preschool. Neither of the students had selection or discrimination responses, the listener component of Naming, following mastery of match to sample programs for two-dimensional visual stimuli while hearing the tact as they matched. We taught the students to match same sounds and same words using BIGMac[R] buttons, and tested the effects of mastery of these skills on the emergence of the listener component of Naming. A time-lagged multiple probe design across students was employed to determine if there was functional relation between the acquisition of auditory matching and the emergence of the listener component of naming. The results showed that for these two students, the acquisition of an auditory matching repertoire was functionally related to the emergence of the listener component of Naming. We also report data on the participants' echoic responses to stimuli as well as emergent tact responses (the speaker component of Naming). Keywords: Observational learning, naming, contingency learning, & emotional and behavioral disorders. ********** The productivity of human language is an area of interest for many who research language development (Skinner, 1957; Chomsky, 1959; Pinker, 1999; Horne and Lowe 1998; Hayes, Barnes-Holmes & Roche 2001, Greer and Yuan, 2003, Speckman-Collins and Greer 2005, Lee-Park 2005.) Some linguists account for novel language production in terms of lexicon, lexical rules and an infinite number of combinations available to speaker (Pinker, 1999; Jackendoff, 2002.) Horne and Lowe's (1998) theory on Naming provides an operant explanation of productive verbal behavior. Naming is a circular relationship between classes of objects and events and the responses they occasion (Horne & Lowe, 1998, p.5.) According to the theory of Naming, speakers listen to their own speech. This orients the speaker back to the item of which they are speaking. This can be particular item or class of items in general. If the item or items evoke tact response from the speaker, the cycle may begin again. The individual can then hold the object in consciousness (Horne & Lowe, 1998, p.6) for as long as the cycle continues. Once an individual has an orienting response towards an item, or listener response, an echoic response may occur. Once listener and echoic response are in place, the conditions exist for the corresponding tact response (Horne & Lowe, 1998.) Once the listener response, the echoic response and the tact are in place, the Naming cycle is complete. Horne and Lowe (1998) claimed that Naming is the basic unit of verbal behavior, upon which all complexities of human language are founded. One experiment that tested the Naming theory showed that only 1 out of 5 children tacted items after being taught an echoic response not in the presence of the item and listener response, but 5 out of 5 children tacted items after being taught listener response and an echoic response in the presence of the item (Horne & Lowe, 1998). In other experiments, acquisition of Naming led to the emergence of discrimination responses to those stimuli (Horne & Lowe, 1998) and teaching tact response resulted in correct sorting behavior (Horne & Lowe, 1998) while teaching only listener response did not (Horne & Lowe, 1998). Another study showed that Naming in two to four year old children resulted in the establishment of arbitrary stimulus classes and that match to sample training resulted in categorization responses (Lowe, Horne, Harris & Randle, 2002). The emergence of Naming has been functionally linked to multiple exemplar instruction (Greer, Stolfi, Chavez-Brown and Rivera-Valdes, 2005. …

Bidirectional naming (BiN) is the integration of speaker and listener responses, reinforced by social consequences. Unfortunately, these consequences often do not function as reinforcers for behavior in children with autism. Accordingly, the repertoire of BiN is also often limited in these children. Previous research has suggested that so-called multiple-exemplar instruction, a rotation between different speaker and listener operants, may be necessary to establish BiN. The present experiment aimed to investigate whether sequential operant instruction might also work as a successful intervention to improve BiN skills after the establishment of standard social reinforcers. Standard social reinforcers were identified and established through an operant-discrimination training procedure in 4 participating children with an autism spectrum diagnosis. In the present experiment, all participants showed increased BiN after sequential operant instruction with conditioned social reinforcers contingent on relevant operants. Two of 4 participants acquired BiN skills. Moreover, the remaining 2 participants scored within the mastery criterion on listener responses, and 1 of them also met the criterion on the tact probes. Essential characteristics of an intervention, as well as the role of the echoic in the emission of BiN, are discussed.

We investigated the effects of an auditory match-to-sample protocol on three preschoolers' accurate echoics to 100 English words and advanced listener responses. The protocol was presented by using an iPad app Sounds the same: an app to target listening and speaking clearly. We used a combination of a multiple probe design (for echoic responses) and a delayed multiple probe design (for advanced listener literacy responses) with a time-lagged baseline across participants to test the effectiveness of the protocol. The three participants ranged from 4 to 5years old and were all diagnosed as preschoolers with disabilities. They were taught to discriminate between positive and negative exemplars of progressively more difficult sounds, words, and phases by matching the sample stimulus to the matching exemplar. Our data show that the mastery of the intervention resulted in increases in the accuracy of the participants' articulation of their echoics, as well as their advanced listener repertoires as measured by the responses to spoken directions in the presence of visual distractors.

We investigated the effects of a “listener emersion” procedure on pre and post numbers of weekly instructional trials (learn units) required to meet instructional objectives in all curricular programs for 8 children with autism (3 and 4 years old) using a multiple probe design across participants. The students had few or no functional verbal repertoires (speech or alternative forms) and their teachers were having difficulty achieving instructional objectives for matching, basic discriminations, and instructional control learning with the students. The dependent variable was the weekly numbers of learn units the students required to achieve instructional objectives in all curricular programs 1 week before, and 2 weeks after the listener emersion. All curricular programs were suspended during the implementation of listener emersion and the students were required to master several sets of listener responses such that the responses could only be controlled by the auditory components of teachers’ audio-taped speech, first to a mastery criterion without a rate requirement and then to mastery with rate of responding criterion. Following listener emersion the students required from one half to ten times fewer learn units to achieve objectives. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of a listener repertoire to children’s advancement and the identification of key de-

The purpose of this study was to examine effects of listener training on emergent selection as listener responses and intraverbal as speaker responses using stimuli within equivalent relations. Two 4 to 5 year old children with developmental disabilites participated in the study. A multiple baseline across participants with multiple probes design was used. Stimulus classes used were vocal stimuli of names of occupations, A; visual stimuli representing the occupations, B; vocal stimuli describing functions of the occupations, C; and visual stimuli depicting functions of the occupation, D. Listener training were provided within A-B, C-D relations. Derived listener responses within A-D relation and interverbal as speaker responses within A-C relations were tested. The results showed that the two participants demonstrated targeted emergent listener and intraverbal responses. The results were discussed within stimulus equivalence paradigm.

The role of joint control in teaching listener responding to children with autism and other developmental disabilities

This study aimed to compare the effects of echoic and listener responding in the emergence of complex intraverbal behavior in four children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Each participant was taught to provide an echoic response or a listener response for different discriminative stimuli for each condition. We used a nonconcurrent multiple probe design across participants and adapted an alternating treatment design to compare the effects between the two conditions. Pre- and posttests were used to evaluate the effects of the two different prompt types in the emergence of complex intraverbals. The results indicate that the echoic response was more effective than the listener response at increasing the emergence of complex intraverbal responses in three out of four participants.

In the realm of behavioral research, significant contributions have greatly advanced reading studies, influencing educational practices. We explored the relationship between the degrees of incidental bidirectional naming (Inc-BiN) capabilities and children's derived relations for literacy responses. Inc-BiN is a repertoire whereby a child acquires listener and speaker responses from observation alone. Incidental unidirectional naming (Inc-UniN) occurs when observation of object-names produces listener, but not speaker behavior. Students who did not demonstrate listener and speaker components were classified as having No Incidental Naming (NiN). Across two studies, we evaluated how component skills involved in Inc-BiN are connected to emergent literacy responses in preschoolers with a disability. In Study 1, participants completed two conditions: (1) directly reinforcing speaker responses and testing for the emergence of listener responses, and (2) directly reinforcing listener responses and testing for the emergence of speaker responses. Results suggested that participants with Inc-BiN readily derived both speaker and listener responses, participants with Inc-UniN readily derived listener, but not speaker responses, and participants with NiN had difficulty acquiring directly reinforced responses and deriving responses. In Study 2, we established Inc-BiN with participants and readministered Study 1 tests. Our results suggest overlap between incidental bidirectional naming and derived responses and point to how one can incorporate derived relations instruction and differentiate instruction for children with varying repertoires.

Studies using teaching techniques derived from Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) principles have shown promising results, based on empirical evidence, in teaching speaker and listener behavior to individuals diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our objective was to compare the effects of two teaching procedures on the acquisition of intraverbal-tact and listener relations involving spatial relations concerning body parts in six boys with autism. In “intraverbal-tact-to-listener”, questions in the presence of non-verbal stimulus were taught and then tested for emergence of listener responding. In “listener-to-intraverbal-tact”, listener responses were initially taught and the emergence of intraverbal-tact responses were tested. An alternate treatment design with an embedded nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants was used. The results suggest that the intraverbal-tact-to-listener protocol was more effective. Such data concerning to body parts spatial relations replicate findings for other repertoires.

The present study tested effects of Intensive Tact Instruction on development of Naming capabilities in preschoolers with language delays and developmental delays. Naming defines as a capability which enable children learn to point as a listener response or learn to tact as speaker response without direct instruction history. We call these responses as a listener Naming or speaker Naming. During the baseline phase, listener Naming capability and speaker Naming capability were probed with Set 1, Set 2, Set 3. All of the participants showed some listener Naming responses. showed lower level of responses as speaker Naming Participant C and Participant E didn’t show speaker Naming and the others showed lower level of speaker Naming responses. During the Intensive Tact Instruction, 86 tact instruction trials were provided in addtion to regular daily instruction trials using 5 stimulus sets, Set 4, Set 5, Set 6, Set 7, Set 8. The Instruction completed when participants reached to preset criterion. Post intevention Naming probe were conducted using the same stimulus sets, Set 1, Set 2, Set 3 as the one used during the baseline probes. Listener Naming responses and speaker Naming responses were imporved significantly in Participant A, Participant B, Participant D. Speaker Naming capabilities were emerged In Participant C and Participant E with the intervention. All of the participants showed some generalized Naming responses with two novel sets of stimuli. The results were discussed in terms of emergences of Naming and prerequisite responses required for implementation of the intensive tact Instruction procedure.

We provide an empirically updated Skinnerian-based account of verbal behavior development, describing how the speaker-as-own-listener capability in children (the capability of children to behave as speaker and listener within their own skin) accrues and how it is pivotal to becoming verbal. The theory grew from (a) findings in experiments with children with and without language delays and (b) findings from research devoted to the identification of derived and emergent behavior (i.e., novel, creative, and spontaneous behavior). Experiments identified preverbal instructional histories leading to separate listener and speaker capabilities and experiences that joined the listener and the speaker. Once this learned intercept is present, children engage in conversational self-talk, engage in say-do correspondence, and acquire new vocabulary without direct instruction. These developmental capabilities make it possible for most complex behavior to be learned, including reading, writing, emission of novel tenses and suffixes, and the following of and construction of complex algorithms.

I tested the effects of the absence and presence of Naming on rate of learning when teacher modeling was part of an instructional procedure. A time-lagged multiple probe design across matched pairs of participants was implemented. Eight elementary aged children with autism, ranging in age from 4 to 7 years old, were selected because they lacked Naming at the onset of the study. The dependent variable was the number of instructional trials, or learn units, required to master 6 mathematics curricular objectives: 3 prior to the emergence of Naming, and 3 following the acquisition of Naming. Each instructional session consisted of a teacher model, in which I demonstrated how to solve 2problems while the participant observed, followed by 20 learn units. Learn unit procedures following the teacher-model included positive reinforcement for correct responses and corrective feedback for incorrect responses. The independent variable in the study was the induction of Naming using multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across listener and speaker responses. Following the emergence of Naming, 3 novel mathematics objectives were taught and rate of learning was measured. The participants' rate of learning under teacher modeling conditions was compared prior to the emergence of Naming, and following the acquisition of Naming. The results of the study showed accelerated learning for all 8 participants under teacher modeling conditions following the acquisition of the Naming capability.

Several reports have demonstrated the emergence of the Naming capability as a function of multiple exemplar instructions (MEI). We compared singular exemplar instruction (SEI) and (MEI) on emergence of untaught listener and speaker responses (Naming) by preschool children who were missing Naming using combined experimental-control group and nested single-case multiple probe designs. We taught training sets of pictures using MEI to 4-participants and the same sets using SEI to another 4-participants with numbers of instructional presentations for SEI participants matched to the MEI participants. Naming emerged for the MEI group but did not for the SEI group. Subsequently, the SEI participants received MEI and Naming emerged. Instructional histories that involve the rotation of speaker listener responding appear to predict the emergence of Naming. We discuss the findings in terms of the relation of the MEI as the source of Naming as a higher order operant and whether or not Naming is a relational frame.

An extra copy of human chromosome 21 has been known for over twenty years to be the chromosomal abnormality in Down's syndrome; however, the biochemical and molecular basis governing expression of the phenotype is still poorly understood. Using the methods of somatic cell and molecular genetics, we have been studying genes and DNA sequences on chromosome 21 by constructing hamster/human hybrids containing a whole or partial chromosome 21 and assigning their locations on the chromosome. In particular, a family of repetitive sequences, some having only a few thousand copies in the human genome, have been used as cloned DNA markers to define deletions in these somatic cell hybrids. We have shown that this approach can significantly improve the resolution of fine chromosomal structures over the conventional cytogenetic analysis. The rationale behind this approach is the observation that a repetitive sequence probe often forms multiple bands after hybridizing to a Southern blot of digested hybrid DNA, and the band pattern appears to be unique for each human chromosome. Therefore, each band (sequence) can be assigned to a particular region of human chromosome 21 by comparing the band patterns from hybrids containing different portions of the chromosome. Results presented here showed that a 0.58-kb repetitive sequence probe can be used to identify deletions, translocations, and other more complicated rearrangements of chromosome 21 seen in patients with abnormalities of this chromosome. The advantage of using such a repetitive sequence probe over a unique sequence is that it can serve both as a repetitive sequence defining multiple sites (multiple bands on a Southern blot) in the genome and at the same time serve as a unique sequence defining a particular site (individual band). For the detection of deletions and other rearrangements, especially in small chromosomes such as 21, it is the former property that makes it very efficient in the initial assignment of a chromosome location.

Based on SLAF-seq, 67 Thinopyrum ponticum-specific markers and eight Th. ponticum-specific FISH probes were developed, and these markers and probes could be used for detection of alien chromatin in a wheat background. Decaploid Thinopyrum ponticum (2n=10x=70) is a valuable gene reservoir for wheat improvement. Identification of Th. ponticum introgression would facilitate its transfer into diverse wheat genetic backgrounds and its practical utilization in wheat improvement. Based on specific-locus-amplified fragment sequencing (SLAF-seq) technology, 67 new Th. ponticum-specific molecular markers and eight Th. ponticum-specific fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) probes have been developed from a tiny wheat-Th. ponticum translocation line. These newly developed molecular markers allowed the detection of Th. ponticum DNA in a variety of materials specifically and steadily at high throughput. According to the hybridization signal pattern, the eight Th. ponticum-specific probes could be divided into two groups. The first group including five dispersed repetitive sequence probes could identify Th. ponticum chromatin more sensitively and accurately than genomic in situ hybridization (GISH). Whereas the second group having three tandem repetitive sequence probes enabled the discrimination of Th. ponticum chromosomes together with another clone pAs1 in wheat-Th. ponticum partial amphiploid Xiaoyan 68.