Developmental Cusp Research Articles

More complex incidental bidirectional naming results from exposure alone.

Incidental bidirectional naming (Inc-BiN) has been defined as a verbal developmental cusp whereby children demonstrate learning the names of things as listener and speaker as a function of observation alone. Stimulus characteristics have been found to affect performance in tests for Inc-BiN. To further explore this effect, Experiment 1 compared untaught listener and speaker responses for novel familiar-type versus novel nonfamiliar-type stimuli with 20 first-grade students following naming experiences in which the participants observed each visual stimulus five times while hearing its name. Participants performed significantly better with familiar-type than with nonfamiliar-type stimuli. Experiment 2 examined the effects of a repeated-probe intervention to induce Inc-BiN with nonfamiliar-type stimuli. Participants were six first-grade students who demonstrated incidental unidirectional naming (i.e., acquired names as listener from exposure alone). Implementation of the intervention was staggered across dyads of participants in a multiple-probe, simultaneous-treatments design. One participant in each dyad received the intervention with nonfamiliar-type stimuli only and the other with both nonfamiliar- and familiar-type stimuli. Pre- and postintervention Inc-BiN probes with stimuli not included in the intervention suggested both conditions were effective in establishing Inc-BiN for nonfamiliar-type stimuli. These findings have implications for understanding the mechanisms underlying Inc-BiN.

Verbal behavior development theory and relational frame theory: Reflecting on similarities and differences.

Relational frame theory and verbal behavior development theory are two behavior-analytic perspectives on human language and cognition. Despite sharing reliance on Skinner's analysis of verbal behavior, relational frame theory and verbal behavior development theory have largely been developed independently, with initial applications in clinical psychology and education/development, respectively. The overarching goal of the current paper is to provide an overview of both theories and explore points of contact that have been highlighted by conceptual developments in both fields. Verbal behavior development theory research has identified how behavioral developmental cusps make it possible for children to learn language incidentally. Recent developments in relational frame theory have outlined the dynamic variables involved across the levels and dimensions of arbitrarily applicable relational responding, and we argue for the concept of mutually entailed orienting as an act of human cooperation that drives arbitrarily applicable relational responding. Together these theories address early language development and children's incidental learning of names. We present broad similarities between the two approaches in the types of functional analyses they generate and discuss areas for future research.

Descriptive Analyses of Relations among Bidirectional Naming, Arbitrary, and Nonarbitrary Relations

Bidirectional naming (BiN) as a verbal developmental cusp and derived relational responding as a phenomenon have been used to explain the accelerated rate in word learning that occurs within the second to third year of life; however, there has been limited research on how these repertoires may be related. In the first of two descriptive studies, we evaluated the relation between degrees of BiN and scores on tests of derived relational responding. Study I involved 31 preschool students with and without diagnoses with whom we tested the presence and strength of relations among BiN and other arbitrary and nonarbitrary relations that were mutually and combinatorially entailed. Data from the first study showed a strong significant correlation between participants’ degrees of BiN and their scores on tests of derived relations. In the second study we collected additional data on BiN and derived relations in order to compare the mean differences between the establishment of arbitrary auditory–visual and visual–visual relations for 18 preschool students selected from the participants within the first study. This subgroup consisted of six students who demonstrated BiN, six students who demonstrated unidirectional naming (listener only; UniN) and six students who demonstrated no UniN or BiN. There were significant differences for both auditory–visual and visual–visual derived relations based on the students’ degrees of BiN. The results of both studies have implications for the intersection between the verbal developmental cusp of BiN (a derived relation itself) and other derived relational responding.

The Selector in Behavior Selection

Decades of research show how what we know about learned reinforcers, as the selectors of behavior, constitutes a significant advancement in behavior analysis. I describe how the learning of new reinforcers results in new operants including verbal operants and verbal developmental cusps, as well as the potential to build still other reinforcers. The lack of particular types of reinforcers, or a limited community of reinforcers, is the root source of many problems in applied work and sources of complex relations in the basic science. In cases where the relevant reinforcers are present, building behavior is the solution; however, when the relevant reinforcers are not present, the use of prosthetic reinforcers does not solve the real problem. In the latter case, the solution is to build new reinforcers, behaviors will follow. I cite decades of work in food preferences, musical taste, social reinforcers, and the identification and establishment of verbal developmental cusps that shows how identifying and building new reinforcers expands what our science can do. The establishment of a rich community of socially significant positive reinforcers is life-altering.

Mastery of Echoics in Chinese Establishes Bidirectional Naming in Chinese for Preschoolers with Naming in English.

The onset of the verbal behavior developmental cusp of bidirectional naming (BiN) in a second language makes it possible for monolingual English-speaking children to learn names of things in a second language incidentally. We conducted 2 experiments to identify why monolingual English-speaking children cannot demonstrate BiN in another language when they demonstrated BiN in their native language. In Experiment I, using a group design (n = 32 preschoolers), we identified Chinese speech sounds that monolingual English-speaking children with BiN in English for familiar stimuli could not echo. In Experiment II, using a multiple-probe design, we investigated if mastery of echoics with the speech sounds identified in Experiment I would result in BiN in Chinese with 6 participants from Experiment I. The dependent variable was untaught responses to the probe stimuli presented following the naming experience based on the echoic stimuli from Experiment I. The results showed that echoic training was functionally related to the establishment of BiN in the second language. It appeared that the emission of accurate echoics might be the key to second-language BiN and that emergent correspondence between producing and hearing that occurs with the mastery of the echoic responding may be the source of reinforcement.

Verbal Development, Behavioral Metamorphosis, and the Evolution of Language.

Building on Skinner's theory of verbal behavior, research over the last few decades confirmed verbal speaker operants, added the role of the listener, added the identification of speaker and listener interaction between and within individuals, and identified verbal behavior developmental cusps. Meanwhile, comparative biology focused on how and why language evolved in Homo sapiens. Findings about differences in behavior that neurotypical children demonstrated in their verbal development, and even more so in research that identified and established missing verbal behavior cusps, suggested changes analogous to metamorphosis. These striking changes in stimulus control found in the onset of cusps from the preverbal to the fully verbal child led us to an expansion of the concept of metamorphosis from morphology to the domain of behavior. The major findings of this comparative perspective are presented here as they have led us from experimental analyses of verbal development to metamorphosis as complex verbal behavior transformation and finally to a novel hypothesis about the evolution of language based on the concepts and research described here. To our knowledge, this is the first formulation of verbal development as behavioral metamorphosis in the context of evolutionary developmental biology.

Learning at Developmental Cusps: A Lifespan Perspective

Learning at Developmental Cusps: A Lifespan Perspective

Experience and the Onset of the Capability to Learn Names Incidentally by Exclusion

The onset of naming, a behavioral developmental cusp, makes it possible for children to learn the names of things incidentally as listeners and speakers. Naming-byexclusion (NE) is an extension of this. When children have NE, they learn word-object relations from hearing a word for an unknown stimulus when they know the names of all items in view except the unknown item. We identified 39 preschoolers with naming, only 5 had naming-by-exclusion. We selected 16 of the children with naming who were missing NE and matched them by repertoires in 8 pairs and randomly assigned pairs to 2 groups. The experimental group received exclusion multiple exemplar training (EMEI), in a non-concurrent multiple probe design sequence, as well as the school curriculum, while the control received the school curriculum alone. The dependent variable was untaught responses to novel stimuli presented in settings that provided the opportunity to learn names by exclusion. The 8 participants who received EMEI acquired NE; 1 of 8 participants in the control group did. The single case design also showed a functional relation between the EMEI and NE. Experiences appear to establish learning the names of things by exclusion.

“Hidden” Skills and Deficits in the Emergence of Autism

Autism encompasses a set of pluralistic developmental behavioral interactions that are organized into patterns that are both characteristic of the autism diagnosis and unique to the individual. We discuss three aspects underlying the development of autism: nonlinearity, cusps, and the notion of “hidden” skills and deficits. Autistic characteristics may suddenly emerge from skills previously undetected. Because these skills are necessary but not sufficient for the development of other behaviors, they can be identified as behavioral cusps. Because these skills are “hidden” (not readily observed), identifying and assessing them is a challenge to researchers and clinicians. In this paper we discuss some typical hidden skills and deficits that may contribute to the development of autistic behavior and provide examples of how they function developmentally in autism. Early detections of these skills and deficits are crucial for establishing the behavioral developmental cusps for typical development and avoiding the cusps for the development of autism.

Effects of Conditioning Voices as Reinforcers for Listener Responses on Rate of Learning, Awareness, and Preferences for Listening to Stories in Preschoolers With Autism

We used a delayed non-concurrent pre- and post-intervention probe design to test the effects of a voice conditioning protocol (VCP) with 3 preschoolers with autism on (a) rate of acquisition of listener curricular objectives, (b) observing voices and the presence of adults across 3 settings, (c) selecting to listen to adults tell stories in free play setting, and (d) the occurrence of stereotypy in the story setting. The VCP conditioned voices as reinforcers for listening to recordings of voices via stimulus-stimulus pairing, which resulted in the children listening to audio recordings of voices in 90% of intervals in 5-min concurrent-operant preference tests. After voices became conditioned reinforcers, all 3 children's learning accelerated; 2 children's observing responses increased in the 3 settings; and 2 children selected to listen to stories and also showed decreased stereotypy in the story setting. The data suggest that conditioned reinforcement for observing responses may be a verbal behavior developmental cusp that acts to accelerate learning that involves listening, and that the cusp may be induced using the VCP.

A rose by naming: how we may learn how to do it.

Naming appears to be the source of the explosion in language development and involves the integration of the initially separate listener and speaker responses. This integration has a role in the development of reading, writing, and the following and construction of verbal algorithms that make types of complex human behavior possible. Considerable research has investigated the role of Naming in the emergence of derived relations. Recent research has also investigated the emergence of Naming itself. We describe these experiments and the experiences that function to induce Naming. We also describe evidence about preverbal developmental cusps that are foundational to the emergence of Naming and the evidence on its reinforcement sources. The isolation of the role of the environment in the emergence of Naming identifies stimuli that were said to be missing in accounts that were critical of Skinner's (1957) account of verbal behavior. These arguments purported that the phenomenon was not attributable to learning because of the "poverty of the stimulus." Some of the relevant stimuli now appear to be identified.

Generic instruction versus intensive tact instruction and the emission of spontaneous speech.

Introduction The expansion of the tact repertoire appears to be critical to the acquisition of subsequent and more complex verbal developmental stages. It is likely that direct instruction in tacts must continue until children have acquired the verbal developmental cusp of Naming, which is defined as the capability to acquire the listener and speaker responses to stimuli incidentally (Greer & Speckman, 2009; Greer, Stolfi, & Pistoljevic, 2007; Horne & Lowe, 1996; Pistoljevic & Greer, 2006; Skinner, 1957). Skinner (1957) described six elementary verbal functions for the speaker, including (1) echoics, (2) mands, (3) tacts, (4) autoclitics, (5) intraverbals, and (6) textual responding. For the purposes of this study, we focus primarily on mands, tacts, and intraverbals. Mands are speaker or substitute speaking topographies that are emitted under conditions of deprivation or annoying conditions in the presence of a listener who then mediates the environment for the speaker (Skinner, 1957; Greer & Ross, 2008). Tacts are verbal operants occasioned by a discriminative stimulus in the environment and are reinforced by generalized reinforcers particularly attention (Tsiouri & Greer, 2003). Children with autism usually demonstrate deficits in functional communication (DSM-IV, American Psychiatric Association, 1994) , including tacts. For example, children with autism typically do not emit language without prompting or questioning by others and thus demonstrate few instances of speech (Krantz & McClannahan, 1998). For this reason, studies have focused on the development of verbal skills by these children. Partington, Sundberg, Newhouse, & Spengler (1994) implemented a procedure for transferring stimulus control from verbal stimuli to nonverbal stimuli in a six-year-old girl with autism. As a result, the girl acquired tact responses to 19 stimuli. Partington et al. then proposed that the reason for the failure of children with autism to acquire tacts may be tied to the antecedent verbal behavior of others (e.g., What is that?) which functions to block the establishment of stimulus control by a nonverbal stimulus. This observation is consistent with findings reported by Williams and Greer (1993). Several evidence-based protocols are available for inducing echoics and then mand and tact responses for children who have no, or limited, vocal verbal operants. Included here are (1) the stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure to induce echoics (Sundberg, Michael, Partington, & Sundberg, 1996), (2) rapid motor imitation to induce echoics to mand and echoics to tact functions (Ross & Greer, 2003; Tsiouri, & Greer, 2003), and (3) direct echoic to mand and echoic to tact instruction (Williams & Greer, 1993). Procedures are also available to expand repertoires such as speaker immersion (Greer & Ross, 2004; Ross, Nuzzolo, Stolfi, & Natarelli, 2006; Schwartz, 1994). However, once repertoires are established, children need extensive instruction in order to expand their language functions or verbal repertoires. The primary repertoire in need of expansion is the tact repertoire because tacts are foundational to the subsequent development of more complex verbal behavior such as Naming, say-do correspondence, conversational units, and age-appropriate self-talk (Barnes-Holmes, Barnes-Holmes, & Cullinan, 2000; Greer & Ross, 2008; Greer & Speckman, 2009; Horne & Lowe, 1996). Several recent investigations suggested the importance of directly and intensely teaching the tact repertoire, especially for those children who cannot acquire tacts through spontaneous observational learning (Williams & Greer, 1993; Ross & Greer, 2003; Schauffler, & Greer, 2006; Tsiouri & Greer, 2003; Pistoljevic & Greer, 2006; Pistoljevic, 2008). The protocol used in these studies is referred to as the intensive tact procedure (ITP). …

Effects of conditioning reinforcement for print stimuli on match-to-sample responding in preschoolers.

Introduction One of the major challenges in the fields of education, psychology, and speech therapy is to develop science based research procedures to teach children with language disabilities how to acquire repertoires for learning more complex verbal skills. Keohane, Delgado, and Greer (2008) argue that the foundations for the development of early verbal language in children consists of child's observing responses such as looking, listening, tasting, smelling and touching. When observing responses such as looking and making sustained eye contact with adults and other visual stimuli do not function as conditioned reinforcement for children, these children fail to develop correspondence between what they hear and see concurrently. Moreover, children that lack these conditioned reinforcers for observing responses are likely to find it difficult, if not impossible, to learn more complex skills such as language acquisition, generalized matching and becoming more aware of different stimuli in their environment. Children with disabilities often have difficulty attending and discriminating among the relevant properties of stimuli to master both basic and generalized matching. Greer and Ross (2008) based on Skinner's (1957) theory of verbal behavior identified this deficit (lack of observing/attention to instructional) stimuli as developmental capability or Drawing on Ruiz and Baer's (1997) treatment of the acquisition of critical repertoires as behavioral developmental cusps, Greer and Ross summarized body of research that they argue identify several verbal developmental They suggest that these building blocks make it possible for children to learn listener and speaker responses and the joining of listener and speaker repertoires that make progressively more complex verbal behavior possible. Ruiz and Baer characterized developmental cusp as a special instance of behavior, change crucial to what can come next.... (p. 533). Several years earlier Staats (1968, p. 267) suggested something like behavioral developmental cusps. Several verbal developmental cusps and stages have been identified in the research literature and described as verbal developmental capabilities. The very earliest foundations for verbal development include cusps that consist of conditioned reinforcement for observing responses (Dinsmoor, 1985; Donahoe & Palmer, 2004; Greer & Ross, 2008) Recently, Keohane, Greer, & Ackerman (2006), tested the effects of conditioning sustained eye contact with three-dimensional (3D) objects (Visual Tracking Protocol) on the acquisition of matching responses for participant for whom looking at or observing 3D instructional stimuli on table that were not reinforcers for visual observing responses. They found that when 3D stimuli were paired with unconditioned reinforcers (e.g. food) until the 3D stimuli alone reinforced observing, the participants' mean-learn-units-to criteria dramatically decreased for learning match-to-sample instruction, and also his attending skills increased. The stimuli were conditioned as reinforcers for observing after the stimulusstimulus paring, which resulted in significant decreases in the numbers of learn units the participants required to master visually related instructional material. The significant acceleration in rate of learning for these participants suggest the role of conditioned reinforcement for observing responses as developmental cusp, since the participants could learn discriminations they could not learn prior to intervention. The newly conditioned reinforcers for observing responses constituted acquisition of developmental cusp. Keohane, Delgado, and Greer (2008), surmised that observing responses in children are tied to and are result of conditioned reinforcement for observing. When child is missing this capability, experimentally based conjugate reinforcement procedures or stimulus-stimulus pairing procedure can be used to induce conditioned reinforcement for observing responses for print and 3D instructional stimuli. …

Review of Verbal behavior analysis: Inducing and expanding new verbal capabilities in children with language delays.

Greer &. Ross (2007): Verbal Behavior Analysis: Inducing and Expanding New Verbal Capabilities in Children with Language Delays Language impairments affect 7% of preschool children (Ziegler, 2005). Some of these children will catch up to their peers, but many will continue to have problems at school age. For example, Paul (2000) found that 16% of children with expressive language delays at age 2 continued to present with language impairments at the age of 7. Additionally there is evidence that early problems with oral language are related to later problems with the development of literacy skills (Bartlett, et al., 2002). Moreover, when language impairments accompany developmental disabilities (e.g., autism, mental retardation), they are likely to remain a life-long challenge. Professionals from a variety of disciplines have developed approaches to language intervention over the past 80 years (Paul, 2007). Within that context, behavioral approaches have emerged among the most effective, especially for teaching children with autism and related disabilities (Goldstein & Hockenberry, 1991). Traditionally, behavioral approaches emphasized modeling, imitation, systematic prompting, differential reinforcement and discrete trial instruction as a primary instructional format (e.g., Lovaas, 1981). However, more recently the behavioral framework has been expanded to include an emphasis on functional analysis and especially Skinner's (1957) functional analysis of verbal behavior. Additionally, natural environmental teaching (NET) strategies (e.g., incidental teaching, mand-model) were added to the repertoire of important instructional formats, and a review of recent studies supports the effectiveness of these formats (Petersen, 2006 for children with language delays. Skinner (1957) originally developed the verbal behavior model to account for the continuity between operant behavior and language. Others are responsible for applying the model to language instruction (e.g., Sundberg & Partington, 1998; Greer & Ross, 2007). These applications have gradually come to be known as the verbal behavior (VB) approach. Carr and Firth (2005) recently reviewed the published literature on VB practices and pointed to the need for additional research. We believe that his call for research has been addressed in part by Greer and Ross's (2007) book: Verbal Behavior Analysis: Inducing and Expanding New Verbal Capabilities in Children with Language Delays. This book represents the culmination of considerable research, practice, and critical thinking by a Greer and his colleagues (e.g., Greer & Keohane, 2006; Greer, Keohane, & Healy, 2002; Tsai, & Greer, 2006). It addresses many interesting and important questions about the verbal behavior approach, and it offers an evidence-based framework for best practices in behavioral language intervention, including detailed information about assessment, instructional strategies, and procedures for evaluating treatment efficacy. It is highly engaging and conveys complex theoretical information in a clear and reader-friendly style. It is an excellent source of information for students planning a career in communicative disorders, for behavior analysts who wish to enhance their understanding of Skinner's verbal behavior framework, for parents of children with communicative disorders, and for professionals in the fields of developmental disabilities and early intervention. An important feature of this book is that it includes an empirical account of verbal behavior development, and it t may be the first comprehensive account of language development that incorporates Skinner's (1957) verbal behavior model. It describes a developmental trajectory marked by developmental cusps (Rosales-Ruiz & Baer, 1966; Bosh & Hixson, 2004). In some linguistic and cognitive accounts of language development, stages of language growth have been attributed to neurological factors such as a language acquisition device (e. …

Generalized selection-based auditory matching and the emergence of the listener component of naming.

Abstract 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. …

Odontogenic epithelial-mesenchymal iteractions in vitro.

Epithelial or mesenchymal isolates cultivated on the chicken chorioallantoic membrane singly do not possess the potential for tooth morphogenesis. However, when randomly recombined in vitro, their histogenic interaction relates to tooth formation. After 16 days of continuous culture, surviving recombinants formed an advanced tooth germ. Such structures did not, however, demonstrate uniformity in odontogenesis or in developmental cusp patterns.