Analysis Of Verbal Behavior Research Articles

The Importance of Form in Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior and a Further Step

A series of quotes from B. F. Skinner illustrates the importance of form in his analysis of verbal behavior. In that analysis, form plays an important part in contingency control. Form and function complement each other. Function, the array of variables that control a verbal utterance, dictates the meaning of a specified form; form, as stipulated by a verbal community, indicates that meaning. The mediational actions that shape verbal utterances do not necessarily encounter their controlling variables. These are inferred from the form of the verbal utterance. Form carries the burden of implied meaning and underscores the importance of the verbal community in the expression of all the forms of language. Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior and the importance of form within that analysis provides the foundation by which to investigate language. But a further step needs to be undertaken to examine and to explain the abstractions of language as an outcome of action at an aggregate level.

Constructs and events in verbal behavior.

Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior has been the subject of much controversy in recent years. While criticism has historically come from outside the field of behavior analysis, there are now well-articulated arguments against Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior from within the field as well. Recently, advocates of Skinner's analysis have attempted to respond to the critiques, particularly to those regarding Skinner's definition of verbal behavior articulated by proponents of relational frame theory. Specifically, it has been suggested that talk about definitions equates to making the essentialist error. This paper provides an overview of these issues in the context of understanding the role of constructs in science more generally. It will be argued that definitions are central to scientific progress, and are not only relevant to a functional analysis, but a central prerequisite to the pursuit of such an analysis.

Editorial: Verbal Behavior and Motivating Operations

Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior is inextricably linked to a behavioral analysis of motivation. One of the most noteworthy features of the elementary verbal operants that are introduced in the first few chapters of Verbal Behavior is the distinction that is drawn between the mand and other types of verbal behavior. Each of the other elementary verbal operants is controlled by public or private discriminative stimuli that are present in the speaker's physical or social environment. To the extent that training contingencies have established tight control by these stimuli, verbal behavior in the form of tacts, intraverbals, echoics, textual behavior, and so on, should be expected to accurately mirror the stimulus conditions and events that the speaker detects through his or her senses. The mand, by contrast, is occasioned by various motivational variables that affect the speaker, summarized by Skinner (p. 36) as “relevant conditions of deprivation or aversive stimulation.” As Skinner explains in detail in chapter 9 (see also Michael, Palmer, & Sundberg, 2011), most verbal behavior is in fact under the multiple control of variables that characterize more than one verbal operant. The motivational variables that define the mand frequently enter into these multiply-controlled relations, and may serve to reduce the correspondence between what the speaker sees, hears, or feels, and what the speaker actually reports. Throughout the remainder of Verbal Behavior, Skinner makes clear that the controlling variables for the mand are ubiquitous in both simple and complex verbal behavior. In other words, the behavior of a speaker cannot be analyzed solely in terms of discriminative stimuli in the speaker's environment; it is complete only when motivational variables are also taken into account.

FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF VERBAL BEHAVIOR: A BRIEF REVIEW

A variation of the preintervention functional analysis of problem behavior has recently been extended to identify the function of verbal behavior emitted by children with autism. Recent research suggests that a functional analysis of verbal behavior might be beneficial in evaluating previous instruction and guiding the selection of future educational targets and instructional procedures. The present paper reviews previous literature on the functional analysis of verbal behavior and identifies avenues for future research.

The Unusual Suspects: Myths and Misconceptions Associated with PECS

The Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS) is an alternative/ augmentative communication protocol designed to help children and adults with autism and related disabilities to engage in functional communication. The protocol was developed over a number of years and was based on Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior. Publications about the application and effectiveness of PECS have grown steadily. However, there also are many misconceptions about the protocol and its implementation. This paper reviews some of the research associated with PECS, describes several myths and misconceptions, and attempts to clarify many of the issues raised.

Verbal Behavior in Young Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders at the Onset of an Early Behavioral Intervention Program

The scope of this study was direct observation of verbal behaviors of 14 children with autism spectrum disorders at the onset of an early behavioral intervention (EBI) program delivered in a public services agency. Objectives were to (1) describe frequencies of vocal, verbal, and listener behaviors; (2) evaluate the relationship between the behaviors and the children’s level of functioning (IQ and severity of autistic symptoms); and (3) describe the types of consequences provided by EBI therapists following the children’s behaviors. The descriptive and statistical analysis of the data showed that 3 profiles of children were distinctively different in vocal, verbal, and listener behaviors. The results concerning the consequences contingently delivered by therapists to those behaviors show that 65% were followed by positive attention, 5% by negative attention, and 30% by no attention. Results led to recommendations for planning EBI programs, where therapists are not formally trained in verbal behavior analysis.

Editorial: Where should we go from here?

Editorial: Where should we go from here?

Development of Human Behavior Analysis : Theoretical Behavior Analysis of Verbal Behavior and Its Application to Clinical Settings

Development of Human Behavior Analysis : Theoretical Behavior Analysis of Verbal Behavior and Its Application to Clinical Settings

Applying Skinner's Analysis of Verbal Behavior to Persons With Dementia

Skinner's 1957 analysis of verbal behavior has demonstrated a fair amount of utility to teach language to children with autism and other various disorders. However, the learning of language can be forgotten, as is the case for many elderly suffering from dementia or other degenerative diseases. It appears possible that Skinner's operants may facilitate not only acquisition of language but also the ability to recall items or objects that may have appeared to be “forgotten.” The present study examined the utility of having a series of adults in long-term care emit tacts, echoics, or intraverbals upon presentation of various visual stimuli. Compared to a no-verbal response condition, it appears that the incorporation of Skinner's verbal operants can in fact improve recall for this population. Implications for the retraining of lost language are presented.

Emergent verbal behavior and analogy: skinnerian and linguistic approaches.

The production of verbal operants not previously taught is an important aspect of language productivity. For Skinner, new mands, tacts, and autoclitics result from the recombination of verbal operants. The relation between these mands, tacts, and autoclitics is what linguists call analogy, a grammatical pattern that serves as a foundation on which a speaker might emit new linguistic forms. Analogy appears in linguistics as a regularity principle that characterizes language and has been related to how languages change and also to creativity. The approaches of neogrammarians like Hermann Paul, as well as those of Jespersen and Bloomfield, appear to have influenced Skinner's understanding of verbal creativity. Generalization and stimulus equivalence are behavioral processes related to the generative grammatical behavior described in the analogy model. Linguistic forms and grammatical patterns described in analogy are part of the contingencies of reinforcement that produce generalization and stimulus equivalence. The analysis of verbal behavior needs linguistic analyses of the constituents of linguistic forms and their combination patterns.

Crucial issues in the applied analysis of verbal behavior: reflections on crucial conversations: tools for talking when the stakes are high.

A popular-press self-help manual is reviewed with an eye toward two issues. First, the popularity of such books documents the existence of considerable demand for technologies that address the everyday problems (in the present case, troublesome conversations) of nondisordered individuals. Second, many ideas invoked in popular-press books may be interpretable within an analysis of verbal behavior, although much more than casual translation is required to develop technologies that outperform self-help manuals. I discuss several challenges relevant to research, theory refinement, technology development, and dissemination, and conclude that behavioral alternatives to existing popular-press resources may not emerge anytime soon.

Questions on verbal behavior and its application to individuals with autism: An interview with the experts.

A note about the interviews from the editors: The use of Skinner's Verbal Behavior (VB) classification system has been increasingly applied to learners with autism. We asked several of the best known behavior analysts to answer some key questions regarding this practice, the state of research regarding the advantages of this approach, and the confusion that exists regarding the application of VB to this population of learners. We structured the responses to follow each question separately, indicating the responder in each case. At the end of the interviews, you will find relevant references from each responder. We are very grateful to Dr. Mark Sundberg, Dr. Barbara Esch, Dr. John Esch, and Dr. Andrew Bondy for their thoughtful and wise replies. 1. Can you briefly explain the relevance of Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior to intervention for children with autism? Bondy Skinner's analysis provides a guide for teachers and professionals, as well as parents, to determine factors that relate to the control of language. When we teach any skill, I must know the controlling conditions currently in place- where we are now- and the controlling conditions I aim for by the end of the lesson- where we are going. Skinner reminds us to always consider the ABCs of behavior and not to become 'blinded' by the behavior in isolation. Esch and Esch First, it's important to recognize that the advantages of Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior (1957) aren't limited to just those individuals with a diagnosis of autism. The analysis is widely applicable to any language behavior, whether typical or atypical, developmentally appropriate or developmentally delayed, regardless of age, diagnosis, or etiology of condition. Skinner's analysis made it clear that language responses occur, not in isolation, but within a context of ongoing environmental events (i.e., antecedents and consequences). Responses that occur within particular contexts are said to have different functions. As Iwata and colleagues (1982/1994; also see Hanley, Iwata, & McCord, 2003; Lerman et al., 2005) and many other researchers (see Sautter & LeBlanc for a review, 2006) have shown, a functional analysis of behavior is critical to informing intervention. If responses are weak, wrong, or otherwise somehow deficient, an analysis of the contexts in which they occur can help us determine what to do. That is, we can identify the stimuli that currently evoke and maintain behavior (or those that currently fail to do so) and we can compare this information to the stimuli that should control these, or other, responses that we want to develop. Then we can use behavioral procedures (e.g., prompting, fading, differential reinforcement) to eliminate errors by establishing desired language skills (or other skills) under appropriate stimulus control. Without this analysis, we run the risk of recommending interventions that may be ineffective at best, or detrimental at worst. For children with a diagnosis of autism, Skinner's analysis also provides a wealth of why to's. Many skills that are absent or difficult to acquire for individuals with autism (e.g., echoic, self-echoic, self-editing, problem solving, autoclitics) are discussed in Verbal Behavior, yet these topics remain severely under-investigated by researchers. It would be very helpful to have more research in these areas so that clinical interventions could be developed to address these important skills. Sundberg The most important component of an intervention program for a child with autism involves the development of language and social skills (e.g., Lovaas, 1977). In the early years of autism treatment (i.e., Bijou, Baer, Wolf, Risley, Hart, Sloane, Birnbrauer, and Lovaas, at the University of Washington in the 1960s) immediate and significant gains in language and social skills were made from the systematic use of basic behavioral procedures (e. …

Speech and language assessment: A verbal behavior analysis.

Introduction As practitioners concerned with treating speech-language disorders, one of our primary goals is to accurately and efficiently determine which communication skills should be targeted for intervention. How do we know when something needs to be taught? What defines a skill deficit or a communication breakdown ? In everyday terms, a speech-language problem is signaled when a breakdown occurs in the interaction between a speaker and a listener. That is, we say that communication is successful when the outcome of an interaction is effective (i.e., functional), but when the interaction is weak and ineffective, we suspect a deficit in the repertoire of one of the communication partners. Thus, the critical aspect that defines communicative competence lies in the success of the dyad, a dynamic process comprised of functional units of discourse between a speaker and a listener, even when these roles are assumed within a single individual (e.g., Lodhi & Greer, 1989; Palmer, 1998; Skinner, 1957). Despite the fundamentally social nature of communication, assessment tools for speech-language deficits rarely take into account this requisite speaker-listener unit, nor is it routine to test for, describe, or analyze specific breakdowns in this unit. Most speech-language assessments in widespread today evaluate response topographies (forms of responses) alone, without regard for a functional analysis of the causal variables that lead to the specific topographic features of responses. Indeed, much assessment time and energy is expended in classifying speech-language performance, not by its role within a unit of functional communication between a speaker and a listener (i.e., cause and effect), but instead only by its arbitrarily-labeled categories describing non-function based properties such as word structure (e.g., nouns, verbs, plurals), modality (expressive, receptive), relationship (e.g., antonyms/synonyms, agreement), or other inferred characteristics (e.g., ellipsis, nomination, phonological process). This focus is illustrated by ASHA's (1993) definition of language disorder as an impairment in comprehension and/or of spoken, written, and/or other symbol systems. The disorder may involve (1) the form of language (phonology, morphology, and syntax), (2) the content of language (semantics), and/or (3) the function of language in communication (pragmatics) in any combination. Although function is an element of this definition, this usage of the term refers to a linguistic feature of language (pragmatics) in contrast to Skinner's analysis of function in which environmental variables describe (and thus, define) the contingent relation that accounts for each particular instance of an utterance (i.e., language). As such, linguistic descriptions are less adequate for applied work (i.e., treatments) than is Skinner's model, which specifies the variables that evoke and strengthen verbal behavior. To be sure, a thorough topographic description of an individual's speech-language repertoire may be a necessary component to plan an appropriate therapy program, but it is insufficient to accomplish the task because a key element of the evaluation is missing. Our job during assessment is to document not merely occurrences of wrong responses to assessment items, but also the speaker-listener environment (antecedent and consequent variables) in which the topography occurs. If a functional analysis of the speaker-listener exchange is omitted from the assessment, a critical part of language learning is at risk of being excluded from an effective intervention plan (Damico, 1993; Frost & Bondy, 2006; LaRue, Weiss, & Cable, 2008; Rowland & Schweigert, 1993; Spradlin & Siegel, 1982; Sundberg, 2008). Meaning defined by environmental context. The meaning of verbal behaviors is a function of their controlling variables (Hegde, 2008; Skinner, 1957). Speakers and listeners do not make mistakes, use the wrong word, or fail to generalize in the ordinary sense. …

Language and grammar: A behavioral analysis.

Introduction Speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') academic study of language is heavily influenced by linguistic and cognitive viewpoints. A majority of textbooks and writings familiar to SLPs explore in greater detail the linguistic and structural view of language and offer only a limited summary of the behavioral view whose concepts and implications are not carried throughout the text. Most SLPs are well versed in the phonologic, morphologic, syntactic, and structures of language but are not equally well versed in the functional units that are basic to Skinner's (1957) analysis. Nonetheless, SLP's treatment methods are mostly behavioral (Hegde, 1998, 2008a). Inevitably, this has led to a conceptually inconsistent model of language and treatment of language disorders. Chomsky's (1959) critical review of Skinner's (1957) book--Verbal Behavior--is better known than the book itself. Most students and clinicians seem to be unaware of the invalidity of Chomsky's criticism or the competent responses given to his negative review (e.g., Anderson, 1991; MacCorquodale, 1969, 1970; McLeish & Martin, 1975; Palmer, 2006; Richelle, 1976). Rejoinders to his review have pointed out that Chomsky poorly understood Skinner's Verbal Behavior, behavioral methodology, and behaviorism. Chomsky's misunderstanding of Skinner's book and concepts was so severe that it would prompt most examination graders to read no further (Richelle, 1976, p. 209). Chomsky frequently attributed views of other psychologists to Skinner who had unequivocally repudiated them. In a questionable case of scholarship, Chomsky repeatedly misquoted Skinner (Adelman, 2007). More than four decades after he wrote the review, Chomsky was still a critic of Skinner, and with the same distorted understanding of Skinner's work (Virues-Ortega, 2006). A commonly held assumption among most linguists, and SLPs who follow them, is that Skinner's Verbal Behavior has faded into history. The fact, however, is that research on verbal behavior and treatment of verbal behavior disorders based on Skinnerian analysis are flourishing. Among several others in the Unites States, the journals of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, The Behavior Analyst, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, Behavior Modification, and several international journals on behavior analysis regularly publish many articles on the Skinnerian verbal behavior analysis and treatment. This journal, Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis is devoted to bridging the gap between the two disciplines. As Schlinger (2008a) has ably demonstrated, Skinner's Verbal Behavior is alive and well. An interesting observation Schlinger makes is that although both Verbal Behavior and Chomsky's (1957) Syntactic Structures had their 50th anniversary in 2007, Skinner's book on Amazon.com, has been selling better than Chomsky's. The verbal behavior approach to treating children with autism is now recognized internationally as the most evidence-based approach. Teaching almost all forms of communication disorders is essentially behavioral (Hegde, 1998, 2006, 2007; Hegde & Maul, 2006; Pena-Brooks & Hegde, 2007), whether some SLPs acknowledge it or not. In fact, if any tide has turned against something, it is the tide against Chomsky's generative linguistics. While Skinner's experimental and applied behavior analysis is thriving worldwide, Chomsky's generative grammar notion has disappeared from linguistics (Harris, 1993; Leigland, 2007). Chomsky's own multiple revisions and qualifications of his 1957 theory have moved away from a cognitive, generative, rule-based theory of language (Schoneberger, 2000). Within just a few years of Chomsky's Syntactic Structures was published, there was the generative semantic rebellion that denied the supremacy of grammar in language. (Linguists often describe newer approaches as revolution, war, rebellion.) Soon came the pragmatic revolution which asserted in the 1970s that language should be understood as actions performed in social contexts--mostly an arm-chair philosophical view which was still structural in its orientation. …

Use of Music in the Applied Behavior Analysis Verbal Behavior Approach for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

The purpose of this article is to explore the use of music in treating children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) within Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Verbal Behavior (VB) approaches and to augment the understanding of empirical mechanisms of language training techniques with music. The author describes the theoretical orientation and major principles of ABA VB approach that resulted from Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior for language training. Music's suitability for incorporation with ABA VB approach is demonstrated in terms of its functions as an automatic reinforcement. Musical stimuli as antecedent variables of verbal behaviors including motivational variables (i.e., establish operation), verbal stimuli, verbal prompts and nonverbal stimuli are presented. This article provides the theoretical and clinical implications for the use of music in ABA VB training by presenting various strategies for using music in language assessment and training. These clinical implications include an example of a music therapy language training session protocol with various interventions that can enhance verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors in young children with ASD.

Verbal behavior by B.F. Skinner: Contributions to analyzing early language learning.

Introduction Two pieces of literature appeared quietly and without fanfare in 1957. Each book unalterably affected how we have come to view language, human behavior, and language learning. In 1957, Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures (1957), his germinal work that established the foundations of psycholinguistics. This work, in combination with a second publication, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax (Chomsky, 1965), broadly influenced research in linguistics and the theoretical relationships between the mind and language. Together, they represented a firm anchor point on one end-the nativistic end-of the philosophical continuum established in 1957. With regard to explaining language development, one of the more publicized features of this theory was the Language Acquisition Device, or LAD. Although there was no intention to correlate this device to any underlying neurological structure, Chomsky proposed the LAD as the presumed innate mechanism in the human brain (or mind) to explain the apparent ease and rapidity with which children acquire language. Although the concept of the LAD has been modified through the years, in the 1960s it became the widely accepted explanation for children's acquisition of language, largely removing caregivers from any active role in their children's language abilities. The opposite anchor point-the behavioral end-on this philosophical continuum was established that same year, when B.F. Skinner published Verbal Behavior (1957). (See Hegde, in this issue, for a comprehensive review of Skinner's Verbal Behavior.) In contrast to Chomsky's approach, Skinner proposed an analysis of verbal behavior based on a natural science account of behavior that had evolved since the earlier publication of his The Behavior of Organisms (1938). In Verbal Behavior, Skinner applied a functional analysis approach to analyze language behaviors in terms of their natural occurrence in response to observable environmental circumstances and the measurable effects they have on human interactions. In this view, language was characterized as the result of, as opposed to the reason for, complex human behavior. The complexities of language do not exist prior to or independent of human behavior; instead the complexities of language behavior reflect our capacity to respond verbally to the complex and subtle intricacies inherent in human experiences and interactions. In Verbal Behavior, Skinner (1957) did not emphasize explaining the nature of early language development; perhaps the explanation seemed obvious to him from the fact that he had invoked an operant model in the overall analysis. Verbal Behavior primarily focused on an explication of the causal variables for the verbal interactions of accomplished speakers and listeners whose learning histories were in place and preceded the verbal behaviors in question-in essence, adult speakers. It is perhaps unfortunate that Skinner emphasized this level of analysis-adult verbal interactions-throughout Verbal Behavior as it ostensibly posed difficulty for some who have tried to explain the development of language under his model. Chomsky critiqued Skinner's functional analysis in a book review that many found puzzling due to several lengthy criticisms put forth by Chomsky that did not relate to principles or concepts contained in Verbal Behavior. Specifically, Chomsky criticized Skinner for proposing imitation and conscientious parental tutoring as the major explanations for language development. Chomsky also took Skinner to task for his supposed reliance on memorized Markovian chains as an explanation for grammar. However, none of these elements were included in Skinner's model. Over the years, attempts to describe how Skinner's model might be applied to children's language development, including recent sources (Owens, 2005; Berko Gleason, 2005; Hulit, 2006), have continued to rely on perpetuating these misconceptions contained in Chomsky's (1959) bewildering (MacCorquodale, 1970, p. …

Using Skinner's model of verbal behavior analysis to study aggression in psychiatric hospitals.

Introduction Skinner's (1957) conceptualization of verbal behavior has its roots in a series of lectures first presented at the University of Minnesota in the late 1930s, and subsequently at Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. In these lectures Skinner proposed a new theory of verbal behavior, which differed from existing explanations of verbal behaviour that tended to account for language in terms of its underlying meaning. For Skinner, existing explanations were scientifically inadequate because they failed to identify measureable and controllable variables that were causally linked to observable behavior (Skinner, 1957). Skinner, therefore, rejected the traditional formulation of verbal behavior in favor of a new, behaviorally derived formulation. Skinner's new formulation accounted for verbal behavior in terms of operant conditioning. He suggested that verbal behavior (1957) could be understood (and therefore controlled) by gaining an appreciation of the antecedents and consequences of specific utterances, which was best done using functional analysis. So, like other operant behavior , verbal behavior (1957) was conceptualised as a function of the speaker's c urrent environment and their behavioral history. It is these factors that Skinner argued were central to the scientific investigation and understanding of verbal behavior (1957). Skinner's functional analysis identified four antecedents (stimuli) and two consequences (reinforcers) that function to control verbal behavior. The four antecedent variables were: (1) some state of deprivation or aversive stimulation, (2) some aspect of the environment, (3) other verbal behavior, and (4) one's own verbal behavior. The two consequences of verbal behavior were: (1) something related to the state of deprivation/aversive stimulation, and (2) social/educational consequences (Frost & Bondy, 2006). These six variables combine to form six basic functional (stimulus-response) relationships, which specify the antecedent conditions and subsequent consequences of verbal behavior. These six basic units or verbal operants are the building blocks of verbal behavior, and can either stand alone as simple forms of language or can combine to create more advanced forms of verbal behavior (Sundberg & Michael, 2001). The first verbal operant explained by Skinner (1957) was that of the mand. The term mand was used to refer to verbal behaviors that occur in response to a state of deprivation/aversive stimulation and which tends to produce some beneficial or desired outcome related to that state . In other words a mand is a verbal operant that specifies its reinforcer. A typical example is a request for water by one who is thirsty. Another verbal operant identified by Skinner (1957) is the tact. Tacts are verbal behavior evoked by an object/event or some property of an object/event (Skinner, 1957). That is, the presence of a given object (the stimulus) increases the probability of a given response (the tact), which in turn is generally reinforced (e.g. praise). For example, presenting a picture of a cat to a child may evoke the response cat, which is reinforced by praise from the parent. Additional verbal operants are the echoic, intraverbal, textual, and transcriptive. These are similar to tacts in that they are made as a response to some external stimulus. The difference, however, is that intraverbal, echoic, textual and transcriptive operants occur in response to a verbal discriminative stimulus ([S.sup.D]), whereas the tact is made in response to a non-verbal stimulus. Echoic verbal operants refer to verbal behaviors that are simple imitations of the verbal behavior of others. Intraverbal operants also occur in response to an [S.sup.D] but are not echoic in nature. Common examples of intraverbal behaviors are answering a question or filling in a blank, such as when a child says farm after hearing Old MacDonald had a . …

General outcome measures for verbal operants.

A general outcome measure (GOM) can be used to show progress towards a long-term goal. GOMs should sample domains of behavior across ages, be sensitive to change over time, be inexpensive and easy to use, and facilitate decision making. Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior may benefit from the development of GOM. To develop GOM, we conducted a review of the literature on mands, tacts, echoics, and intraverbals. The four areas reviewed included (a) an examination of the participant's response form (i.e., vocal or nonvocal), (b) the type of prompt used, (c) types of materials used, and (d) timing of responses or sessions. Based on the review of the literature, we developed GOM for mands and tacts. This paper attempts to bridge the concept of GOMs with Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior.

Editorial

Editorial

Publication trends in the analysis of verbal behavior: 1999-2008.

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior (TAVB) publishes experimental and theoretical papers relevant to a behavioral analysis of language. Normand, Fossa, and Poling (2000) reviewed the published studies in TAVB across several dimensions and found that despite the growth of the journal, most articles published in TAVB from 1982 to 1998 were nonexperimental. The current study extends this review by analyzing articles published in TAVB from 1999 through 2008. Results showed that 48% of the articles published between 1999 and 2008 were experimental (65% in the last 4 years), 93% of them used within-subject experimental designs, and most of them (54%) included children with developmental disabilities. This suggests an increased interest in the experimental analysis of verbal behavior with a focus on teaching language to individuals with disabilities.