INTRAVERBAL B. F. Skinner proposed that language can be broken down in to units by funcon, as opposed to words and sounds. He called these units of language Verbal Oper- ants. These include mands (requests), tacts (labels and nouns, verbs, etc.) and intraverbals (quesons and con- versaonal skills), to name a few. Sundberg & Michael (2001) included a graph that depicts technical definion of Skinner’s (1957) Elementary Verbal Operants which includes intraverbal as: The Intraverbal is disnguished by the fact that it is prompted by an antecedent smulus that is verbal (spoken word, sign, etc.) by another person. The conse- quence is usually socially mediated and non-specific (different to mands which require specific consequenc- es; a cookie if a cookie is requested). Typically develop- ing children usually develop an extensive intraverbal repertoire without direct training. Children with devel- opmental or language delays may have difficulty devel- oping this repertoire. This will have an impact on their social skills as intraverbal behaviours are integral to most interacons. Some young learners may know the word ‘biscuit’ as a request, or when shown a biscuit and asked “What is this?” will label it as “biscuit”, although they may not be able to answer “Tell me something you eat?”. This was demonstrated by Parngton & Bailey et al (1993) who found in their study that “teaching a tacng reper- toire to … preschool children was not sufficient to bring the responses under the control of verbal smuli”. In their study they compared responses to quesons about classes, e.g., “What are some toys?”. The parci- pants could label a variety of toys when shown pic- tures, although they could not give the names in re- sponse to the queson. Parngton & Bailey taught mulple tacts to each item, for instance “ball.. And ball is a toy” when shown the picture. Tacng the item and the class when shown the picture influenced the acqui- sion of intraverbal responses to class quesons. This supports Skinner’s analyse of verbal language, as it shows that words may require teaching under each operant. Busy Analytical Bee NEWSLETTER September Welcome to the September edion. In this edion we look at Intraverbals and consideraons for interven- ons. There is also an interview with the amazing Todd Ward, PhD, BCBA-D of Behavioral Science in the 21st Century (bSci21). I also look into using the trampoline in your NETs, there’s a list of turn taking games in the product wish list and we also celebrate the career of Julie Vargas Have a great month! Kirsty Angel M.Sc. BCBA (Author) Please contact [email protected] | www.busyanalycalbee.com Picture from: https://flic.kr/p/ u27NuT Examples of Intraverbal behaviours Antecedent (Person 1) Behaviour (Person 2: Speaker) Consequence (Person 1) “Tell me something with wheels” “bus” “Great job!” “The wheels on the bus go round and...” “Round!” “Good singing!” “What’s your name?” “Marcus” “Thanks!” “What’s your fa- vourite movie?” “Monsters Inc” “Mine too!” Controlling Variable Response Consequence Verbal smulus without point- to-point correspondence or formal similarity Intraverbal Non-specific reinforcement
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Transcript
INTRAVERBAL
B. F. Skinner proposed that language can be broken
down in to units by function, as opposed to words and
sounds. He called these units of language Verbal Oper-
ants. These include mands (requests), tacts (labels and
nouns, verbs, etc.) and intraverbals (questions and con-
versational skills), to name a few. Sundberg & Michael
(2001) included a graph that depicts technical definition
of Skinner’s (1957) Elementary Verbal Operants which
includes intraverbal as:
The Intraverbal is distinguished by the fact that it is
prompted by an antecedent stimulus that is verbal
(spoken word, sign, etc.) by another person. The conse-
quence is usually socially mediated and non-specific
(different to mands which require specific consequenc-
es; a cookie if a cookie is requested). Typically develop-
ing children usually develop an extensive intraverbal
repertoire without direct training. Children with devel-
opmental or language delays may have difficulty devel-
oping this repertoire. This will have an impact on their
social skills as intraverbal behaviours are integral to
most interactions.
Some young learners may know the word ‘biscuit’ as a
request, or when shown a biscuit and asked “What is
this?” will label it as “biscuit”, although they may not
be able to answer “Tell me something you eat?”. This
was demonstrated by Partington & Bailey et al (1993)
who found in their study that “teaching a tacting reper-
toire to … preschool children was not sufficient to bring
the responses under the control of verbal stimuli”. In
their study they compared responses to questions
about classes, e.g., “What are some toys?”. The partici-
pants could label a variety of toys when shown pic-
tures, although they could not give the names in re-
sponse to the question. Partington & Bailey taught
multiple tacts to each item, for instance “ball.. And ball
is a toy” when shown the picture. Tacting the item and
the class when shown the picture influenced the acqui-
sition of intraverbal responses to class questions. This
supports Skinner’s analyse of verbal language, as it
shows that words may require teaching under each
operant.
Busy Analytical Bee NEWSLETTER September
Welcome to the September edition. In this edition we
look at Intraverbals and considerations for interven-
tions. There is also an interview with the amazing Todd
Ward, PhD, BCBA-D of Behavioral Science in the 21st
Century (bSci21). I also look into using the trampoline
in your NETs, there’s a list of turn taking games in the
product wish list and we also celebrate the career of