Verbal Behavior

[Guest guest]

Penny,

I was about to sit down and write for the next half an hour on the topic

of Verbal Behavior, (one of my favorite topics) when I came across a good

posting from another mother using VB on another list I'm on. I copied

it directly below so that I wouldn't have to do all of the leg work in

explainingit myself......I know, I know, I'm cheating here, but you guys

won't mind because this definition is pretty good. My friend

(who is a pro at this stuff with her son ) gave another great definition

to VB and I copied it in here as well (That one is at the end)

I hope you will find this helpful. It is the new "Messiah" in

the therapy world I think, because it has answered alot of prayers for

an awful lot of people.

Take care and let me know if you need any more information!

Friends,

Roxanne

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Subject: What is Verbal Behavior

The Verbal Behavior program is based on the book by B.F. Skinner,

"Verbal

Behavior" which was written in 1957. It got very little

notice until

Jack began teaching it at Western Michigan. One

of his

students, Mark Sundberg, along with Jim Partington then wrote the

book "Teaching Language to Children with Autism and Other

Developmental Disabilities". In a nutshell, they made the book

and

it's concepts understandable, and applied it to teaching children with

autism. This is also what Dr. Carbone and McGreevy base

their teaching

methods on.

As some history, we had been doing an ABA program for over 4 years.

My son, at age 7, had not made a lot of progress. He had difficulty

retaining information, and we were all getting burned out. Vince

Carbone stressed that if the child is not progressing, it is NOT THE

CHILD THAT IS FAILING, IT IS OUR TEACHING METHODS.

There are several differences from the traditional ABA (Lovaas)

therapy in their approach.

First and foremost, the teaching is "near errorless". The child

is

successful (and happy) because you don't give them a chance to fail.

If a correct response is not given within 2-3 seconds, the therapist

prompts the answer.

Secondly, the emphasis is on "natural" language. Instead of always

asking the same question over and over ("give me red, give me blue

etc.") you now vary the types of questions and the way you ask.

So,

instead of doing a colors drill, a shapes drill, an animals drill etc,

you now ask about things many different ways. For example:

"Give me the one that says meow" (cat)

"Touch the vehicle" (fire truck)

"Do this" (touch nose)

'Which one goes 'choo choo' " (train)

"A" (A) (note: verbal im)

"Give me the one that grows in a garden" (flower)

"Show me which one you might see at a fire." (fire truck)

"Do this" (bang on table)

"Which one would you find in the living room?" (sofa)

"Point to something that's red." (fire truck)

"Find the one that's furry" (cat)

Another difference is that the reinforcer is paired with the

therapist. So, instead of letting the child up from the table

to "go

play", we actually turn on the VCR to get him to come to the table.

He gets as much food as he wants while we ask him questions, instead

of only getting a tiny piece of something when he correctly responds

on the first try. The pressure is gone!

You also try to teach the child to respond quickly and correctly (what

Vince referred to as super fluency) not just correctly. So the

therapy is very fast paced. We had been struggling with the basics

for quite a while, and after two weeks, I saw that Kenny was much

stronger with things like colors, shapes etc. using the super fluency

techniques.

Finally, language itself is classified into several different

categories.

1) Receptive Language (where the child complies with somebody else's

request). For example, "Touch the cat". (child points to picture

of

the cat)

2) Receptive by Feature, function and category (class) (where

the

child receptively identifies something based on a description)

For

example,

"Which one has fur?" (child points to picture of the cat)

"Show me the one that is a pet."

"Which one is soft when you touch it?"

"Which one says 'meow'? "

3) Echoic (where the child repeats what you say)

"Cat" (child says "cat")

4) Motor Imitation (this is where sign language comes in)

5) Mand (the child requests something when s/he is motivated for it)

6) Tact (where the child labels something s/he sees) For example,

if

the cat walks by, the child points and says "cat".

7) Intraverbal (conversational language where a child responds

to

questions when there is no visual stimulus) For example, if you

asked

the child what kind of pet s/he had and the response was "cat".

The child has to be able to use the word in all of these ways for it

to be really functional. In our program, because Kenny was basically

non-verbal, we were pretty much stuck on the receptive part.

At the conference, Vince pointed out that the child must have all of

these FUNCTIONAL skills. He asked us why we all put so much emphasis

on academics, when the children really need functional skills first.

(My answer: the schools drive us in that direction. It

doesn't mean

it's the right thing to do!)

The same basic principles of ABA are still employed. Functional

assessments are still very important. And we are still working

on the

same basic material. Now it's a LOT more fun.

We saw many videotapes during the two day conference of several

children who have made dramatic progress using this method, including

a little boy who was 9 years old and completely non-verbal who began

talking after three months. What they have found is that by using

sign language, the child is actually more likely to begin speaking.

(I ran out to buy a sign language book right after the conference.)

My son has dyspraxia, and we will need to continue working on

maximizing his verbal skills. I still do two 30 minute sittings

of

verbal imitation and oral motor exercises each day. But his sounds

get stronger every day, and I have already heard him attempt more

words since we have switched to this method. It is very exciting.

I would definitely recommend the Carbone/McGreevy approach to all

parents who have a child with autism. But a word of caution.

YOU

HAVE TO DO THIS RIGHT or it will be a complete failure. Don't

try to

do it on your own without a trained consultant to help you, unless

you

thoroughly understand verbal behavior.

I would definitely recommend to anybody thinking of implementing these

techniques to attend a conference given by these wonderful people.

Seeing the videos of therapy sessions makes all the difference in the

world. I can honestly say that I really enjoyed listening to

Vince

Carbone and Pat McGreevy when I heard them a few weeks ago. It

is

VERY obvious that these guys REALLY CARE about our kids.

I hope this summary has been helpful. I can tell you that I have

renewed hope for my little guy. He is really taking off, and

he knows

MUCH more than was apparent with his traditional Lovaas therapy.

(This is something I always knew, but couldn't prove. Now I can

prove

it!!)

The therapists we have working with our son LOVE THIS METHOD!

They are

very excited, and I think he is quite excited too. He is SO MUCH

HAPPIER! His self esteem has really skyrocketed.

_________________________________________________________________________

You can find a nice explanation of Applied Verbal

Behavior at www.christinaburkaba.com (click 'What is AVB?').

But in a

nutshell (this is as told by Dr. Vince Carbone, one of the best known

consultants and teachers of VB. www.drcarbone.net):

applied verbal

behavior is a specific field within ABA. In 1957 B.F. Skinner

wrote a book

analyzing 'language use' by functions (operants). Nobody paid

it much

attention and certainly didn't think to apply it to autistic children.

Many

years later Partingon and Mark Sundberg were students of a professor

who believed in what Skinner was saying. Partington and Sundberg

ended up

writing "Teaching Language to Children with Autism and Developmental

Disabilities" and developing the ABLLS (Assessment of Language and

Learning

Skills). They're the ones who made Skinner comprehensible to

those of us

without PhD's in behavior analysis. (You can buy the texts at

Different

Roads to Learning. www.difflearn.com-- I have no interest

in the company.)

The ABLLS is our guide to every aspect of my son's

language development,

along with a lot of other things. Verbal behavior often

looks different

from many DTT programs for several reasons: The teaching is errorless

(We

don't use the 'no, no prompt'). We prompt new targets with a

zero second

delay and quickly fade it, so there's never prompt dependence.

We don't

take data during teaching (just a 'probe' at the beginning of some

sessions)

and certainly never do 10 of anything in a row. There is

a strong emphasis

on developing a child's 'echoic' or vocal imitation and on teaching

them very

early to request reinforcing items/ activities. In the beginning

if a child

has a very weak or no echoic, sign language is used to give a child

the

ability to request what they want. Then as the echoic improves,

vocal

requests are taught and the signs drop out. Another difference

is that

there's a very quick pace of trials with a mixing of operants and skills.

_________________________________________________________________________

Penny wrote:

Roxanne...

Can you tell us a little more about "verbal behavior" method?

Penny

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"What a way to promote Autism Awareness Month - please encourage people at your school, church, or neighborhood to see

this video.

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