Re: 1,000 mands a day / are they all really mands?

[Guest guest]

Sorry for the delay in this reply.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood. It seems to me that some of the

verbal behaviors you are counting as mands are actually tacts/intraverbals.

For example, I quote from your post:

>What am I doing?....pouring the milk.....What is in the

cup?....milk...What color is the milk?....white<

The child's responses appear to be descriptions, rather than requests.

Or, to put it another way, saying " Can I have a snack? " is a mand. The

establishing operation is getting hungry, and yhe normal reinforcement would

be receiving a snack, which is specificly related to the establishing

operation. Saying " This snack is tasty " is a tact. The controlling

stimulus is the (nonverbal) yummy taste of the snack, and the reinforcement

could be any number of things, possibly continued conversation with the

listener, an increased likelihood of receiving future snacks, or, in the

case of our kids, hearing " Good talking! " in response.

Also, the child's responses seem to be elicited by your questions. I

thought mands were supposed to be under the control of establishing

operations, rather than discriminative stimuli. Can someone explain?

I guess one could interpret the statement " The milk is white " as a mand for

milk (since that's certainly the reinforcement the child is seeking), but

that seems very awkward to me, since most people would never use that

wording as a mand for milk.

On the other hand, a person who says, " Mmm, that coffee smells great! " is

probably manding for coffee, despite the fact that the wording is formally

that of a tact.

Can somebody clarify this for me? Do mands always specify their reinforcers

in their wording?

It would seem not; consider a counter example: In a bar, asking " What's

your sign? " sounds like a mand for information. The speaker is apparently

manding for information. However, if he (gender of pronoun is intentional)

received as a response " Capricorn " , and nothing more, I doubt his asking

would be reinforced. He got exactly what he asked for, but he would

probably not continue to use this lame line, so he's not actually manding

for the thing specified by his words.

So I guess you can appear to be tacting and really be manding, and you can

appear to be manding for one thing, and actually be manding for something

else.

I'm pretty confused.

Can somebody clarify this?

Laurel

Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

Hi all,

I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

Example of part of his day

Morning

He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he wants

to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my pants

on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

the cup?....blue....

Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not to

let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong reinforcer

for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he gets

it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

very rewarding day

I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather new

to all this.

W. Bauer

[Guest guest]

Wow, I have to say that Laurel has made a really good point-- that is

something that has always confused me. I always interpreted 1000 mands in a

day as 1000 communicative interchanges, simply because I did not think a

person could actually want 1000 things in a day, and because all that

interverbal work is so good and important it seemed logical that it would

get counted in that 1000 total. But I would love some clarification on

this as well.

laura from louisville

>

> Sorry for the delay in this reply.

>

> Please correct me if I have misunderstood. It seems to me that some of

the

> verbal behaviors you are counting as mands are actually

tacts/intraverbals.

> For example, I quote from your post:

>

> >What am I doing?....pouring the milk.....What is in the

> cup?....milk...What color is the milk?....white<

>

> The child's responses appear to be descriptions, rather than requests.

> Or, to put it another way, saying " Can I have a snack? " is a mand. The

> establishing operation is getting hungry, and yhe normal reinforcement

would

> be receiving a snack, which is specificly related to the establishing

> operation. Saying " This snack is tasty " is a tact. The controlling

> stimulus is the (nonverbal) yummy taste of the snack, and the

reinforcement

> could be any number of things, possibly continued conversation with the

> listener, an increased likelihood of receiving future snacks, or, in the

> case of our kids, hearing " Good talking! " in response.

>

> Also, the child's responses seem to be elicited by your questions. I

> thought mands were supposed to be under the control of establishing

> operations, rather than discriminative stimuli. Can someone explain?

>

> I guess one could interpret the statement " The milk is white " as a mand

for

> milk (since that's certainly the reinforcement the child is seeking), but

> that seems very awkward to me, since most people would never use that

> wording as a mand for milk.

>

> On the other hand, a person who says, " Mmm, that coffee smells great! " is

> probably manding for coffee, despite the fact that the wording is formally

> that of a tact.

>

> Can somebody clarify this for me? Do mands always specify their

reinforcers

> in their wording?

>

> It would seem not; consider a counter example: In a bar, asking " What's

> your sign? " sounds like a mand for information. The speaker is apparently

> manding for information. However, if he (gender of pronoun is

intentional)

> received as a response " Capricorn " , and nothing more, I doubt his asking

> would be reinforced. He got exactly what he asked for, but he would

> probably not continue to use this lame line, so he's not actually manding

> for the thing specified by his words.

>

> So I guess you can appear to be tacting and really be manding, and you can

> appear to be manding for one thing, and actually be manding for something

> else.

>

> I'm pretty confused.

>

> Can somebody clarify this?

>

> Laurel

>

> Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

>

> Hi all,

> I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

> at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

>

> Example of part of his day

> Morning

> He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he

wants

> to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

> reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

> knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

> the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

> with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my

pants

> on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

> please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

> milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

> the cup?....blue....

>

> Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not

to

> let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

>

> If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong

reinforcer

> for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he

gets

> it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

>

> It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

> one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

> very rewarding day

>

> I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather

new

> to all this.

>

> W. Bauer

>

>

> VISIT www./community/ for informative FILES, LINKS page,

and ARCHIVE searches. You will need your password for egroups to use these

services.

>

>

[Guest guest]

----------->

>

>Wow, I have to say that Laurel has made a really good point-- that is

>something that has always confused me. I always interpreted 1000 mands in a

>day as 1000 communicative interchanges, simply because I did not think a

>person could actually want 1000 things in a day, and because all that

>interverbal work is so good and important it seemed logical that it would

>get counted in that 1000 total. But I would love some clarification on

>this as well.

>

>laura from louisville

>

>

>>

Actually, I think it that is what you STRIVE for, not what you necessarily

achieve, but yes, mands are requests, but that can be for a LOT of things,

a hug, kiss, see that, (a request for you to look, not a pure tact,) a

request for information, and I will give you an example of my middle NT

kid's endless mands, " Mom! " (mand for my attention,) " What is for dinner? "

(mand for info,)

" I want blue cheese dressing. Can I have more cucumbers with that? And a

bigger baked potato. " then on to, " I'm thirsty, do we have juice? "

" Where is a glass?, " and pause, " Why doesn't anyone unload the dishwasher

around here? " (mand for information.)

" If you are going to get some ice, will you get me some, " and in between

comments about it being too cold, just right and wondering why the butter

is rock hard, and so forth, " I want to rent a video, " (request for object.)

I mean if you think about it just one meal can have many, many mands. In my

example I gave close to a dozen, and lets pretend that took five to ten

minutes at most.

Of course I have raised or am raising two teenage girls, so I KNOW they can

want 1000 things a day. ROFL.

I know Ize says, TICKLE ME more times than you can imagine, and MOVIE or an

attempt, and of course nonverbally remember how many times they may ask,

but have to learn to add that in. I figure for every time the child learns

to replace a poke, push, shove the movie tape in your face, etc., is a

nonverbal mand eventually to be turned into a mand most probably. So, it

does not seem so strange to me that we could have hundreds of mands.

Whether one has an exact thousand is totally arbitrary. A shy normal person

may not ask for a lot of things but COULD, and a verbose person may never

stop, but some place in between is much manding, and then all the other

forms of verbal behavior and many times there is overlap.

Jennie

[Guest guest]

Sorry Laurel,

Seems you misunderstood me. Let me clear this up a bit if I can.

Since I use every " mand " i.e. " Can I have some milk please mama? " to get

intraverbals and tacts along with it, this leads to more manding. Perhaps at

the middle and end of this little example I gave, I get other mands such as

" get a cup mama " . " Pour the milk mama " . Though I am new to ABA DTT these to

me are mands and I can " milk " (pun intended) more out of my son by asking

him questions in response to the first mand. Perhaps to you, or others, this

is not a clear cut case of just manding. To me it continues getting Connor

to get across to me in all kinds of ways what exactly he wants etc. He also

is very tolerant of my constant questioning which makes it very easy for me

to get all I can out of him.

My idea is to have my son learn how to mand in all ways, all he can. The

goal, for me that is, is to get my son to be able to mand for thousands of

things and to be able to actually talk ALL about said things.

If my definition of " manding " was not following the book definition of

manding, I apologize. I thought perhaps an example of how much I can get my

son to talk about something using that first mand before he gets the

reinforcer (milk in this case) might be of some value. I surely get inspired

and learn more things on this list from others experiences. I am not sure if

explains fully what I was trying to say. I do hope so.

Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

>

> Hi all,

> I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

> at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

>

> Example of part of his day

> Morning

> He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he

wants

> to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

> reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

> knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

> the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

> with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my

pants

> on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

> please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

> milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

> the cup?....blue....

>

> Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not

to

> let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

>

> If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong

reinforcer

> for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he

gets

> it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

>

> It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

> one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

> very rewarding day

>

> I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather

new

> to all this.

>

> W. Bauer

>

>

[Guest guest]

>

>If my definition of " manding " was not following the book definition of

>manding, I apologize. I thought perhaps an example of how much I can get my

>son to talk about something using that first mand before he gets the

>reinforcer (milk in this case) might be of some value. I surely get inspired

>and learn more things on this list from others experiences. I am not sure if

>explains fully what I was trying to say. I do hope so.

>

>

Defintion or not, I think it is a great way to generate mands. I wish my

son was able to answer anything so we could get more, but this is

definitely a good way to go. Besides as you state well, we want

conversation, not a demanding monster. Ok, so right now I would take a more

demanding monster, I mean male child. LOL

Jennie

[Guest guest]

Laurel,

The way I interpret it is like this: Child says, " juice " , (clearly a mand),

mom says " what do I need? " , child says, " cup " , (could be a tact, but in this

case is a mand because he is in a way asking you to get a cup so that he can

have his juice), mom gets cup and says, " what do I need to do? " , child says,

" pour " , (which could be considered a tact of an action, but again, in this

case is actually a mand because the child is asking you to pour his juice).

I think the confusion is in the wording of the other example:

> >What am I doing?....pouring the milk.....What is in the

> cup?....milk...What color is the milk?....white<

This person is doing a great job of extending the conversation using an EO,

but in reality is asking for tacts rather than increasing mands. Someone

correct me if I am wrong, I am definately not a whiz at this stuff.

Take care,

Randee

Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

>

> Hi all,

> I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

> at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

>

> Example of part of his day

> Morning

> He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he

wants

> to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

> reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

> knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

> the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

> with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my

pants

> on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

> please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

> milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

> the cup?....blue....

>

> Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not

to

> let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

>

> If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong

reinforcer

> for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he

gets

> it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

>

> It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

> one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

> very rewarding day

>

> I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather

new

> to all this.

>

> W. Bauer

>

>

> VISIT www./community/ for informative FILES, LINKS page,

and ARCHIVE searches. You will need your password for egroups to use these

services.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Laurel,

The way I interpret it is like this: Child says, " juice " , (clearly a mand),

mom says " what do I need? " , child says, " cup " , (could be a tact, but in this

case is a mand because he is in a way asking you to get a cup so that he can

have his juice), mom gets cup and says, " what do I need to do? " , child says,

" pour " , (which could be considered a tact of an action, but again, in this

case is actually a mand because the child is asking you to pour his juice).

I think the confusion is in the wording of the other example:

> >What am I doing?....pouring the milk.....What is in the

> cup?....milk...What color is the milk?....white<

This person is doing a great job of extending the conversation using an EO,

but in reality is asking for tacts rather than increasing mands. Someone

correct me if I am wrong, I am definately not a whiz at this stuff.

Take care,

Randee

Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

>

> Hi all,

> I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

> at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

>

> Example of part of his day

> Morning

> He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he

wants

> to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

> reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

> knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

> the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

> with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my

pants

> on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

> please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

> milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

> the cup?....blue....

>

> Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not

to

> let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

>

> If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong

reinforcer

> for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he

gets

> it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

>

> It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

> one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

> very rewarding day

>

> I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather

new

> to all this.

>

> W. Bauer

>

>

> VISIT www./community/ for informative FILES, LINKS page,

and ARCHIVE searches. You will need your password for egroups to use these

services.

>

>

[Guest guest]

Laurel,

The way I interpret it is like this: Child says, " juice " , (clearly a mand),

mom says " what do I need? " , child says, " cup " , (could be a tact, but in this

case is a mand because he is in a way asking you to get a cup so that he can

have his juice), mom gets cup and says, " what do I need to do? " , child says,

" pour " , (which could be considered a tact of an action, but again, in this

case is actually a mand because the child is asking you to pour his juice).

I think the confusion is in the wording of the other example:

> >What am I doing?....pouring the milk.....What is in the

> cup?....milk...What color is the milk?....white<

This person is doing a great job of extending the conversation using an EO,

but in reality is asking for tacts rather than increasing mands. Someone

correct me if I am wrong, I am definately not a whiz at this stuff.

Take care,

Randee

Re: [ ] 1,000 mands a day

>

> Hi all,

> I use every single thing in Connors life to get him to mand. We have to do

> at least a thousand mands a day though I have never actually counted them.

>

> Example of part of his day

> Morning

> He asks for milk and I tell him he first has to pick out the pants he

wants

> to wear. (I usually try to get him to do something else before getting the

> reinforcer, in this case it is the milk. This delays the reinforcer. He

> knows from this routine the he has to do something else before getting to

> the reinforcer. this works well with him since he is easy to make deals

> with ) I ask him what color he wants. What are you doing?..putting my

pants

> on. Then I ask " now what do you want? " He then tells me " I want milk

> please mama " Then I ask him what we put the milk in...cup...Where is the

> milk.?...refrigerator...What do we put the milk in?...cup...What color is

> the cup?....blue....

>

> Through out the entire day I do this for everything he wants. I try not

to

> let any opportunity pass to get him to mand.

>

> If he wants to play a game on the computer or playstation (strong

reinforcer

> for him) we go through everything we can about what he wants before he

gets

> it. It helps that he has many strong reinforcers.

>

> It might be easier for me though, since I stay at home with him and am the

> one being trained in ABA DTT. I have no staff so it makes for a long, but

> very rewarding day

>

> I hope this helps a bit. I am only 3 months into training, still rather

new

> to all this.

>

> W. Bauer

>

>

> VISIT www./community/ for informative FILES, LINKS page,

and ARCHIVE searches. You will need your password for egroups to use these

services.

>

>