Transcript A Behavioural Approach to Language Assessment and

Developing an Educational Program
for Children with Autism
Mark L. Sundberg, Ph.D., BCBA
www.marksundberg.com
Elements of an Educational Program for
Children with Autism
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Assessment of a child’s needs
Identification of an individualized program (IEP)
Constructing an individualized curriculum
Developing an intervention program
Measuring progress (Data collection)
On-going analysis and adjustment
Elements of an Educational Program for
Children with Autism
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Classroom design/daily schedule
Creating a language and social skills educational
environment
Behavior problems
Staff training
Parent training
Integration/inclusion
Assessment of an Individual
Child’s Needs
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What exactly is it that a child with autism needs to
learn, and in what order?
The need for a conceptual framework to guide
assessment (and intervention)
Lots of choices, confusing, too many, no research, lots
of money, (currently on the internet, there are 406
different treatments for autism, Romanczyk, 2007)
Behavior Analysis (Behavioral Psychology) provides
an evidenced-based foundation for understanding the
issues affecting children with autism, and for guiding
intervention programs
Four Powerful Tools for Children
with Autism
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1) The basic teaching procedures that form the
foundation of Applied Behavior Analysis (or
“Behavior Modification,” DTT, ITT, etc.)
2) The functional analysis of behavior (A-B-C), or
“behavior analysis”
3) Skinner’s functional analysis of verbal behavior
(e.g., mands, tacts, intraverbals)
4) Sign language (and to a lesser degree PECS)
Assessment of an Individual
Child’s Needs
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Our first task is to identify the existing skills of each child
in the classroom
Our next task is to identify the language, social,
behavioral, and learning barriers that are preventing more
rapid learning
The failure to conduct an appropriate assessment results
in one of the biggest problems in programs that serve
children with autism: An inappropriate curriculum
We need a tool that is easy to use and will provide
teachers, parents, and staff with the necessary information
to develop an appropriate intervention program
The Importance of Language and
Social Behavior
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The primary focus of an intervention program for
children with autism should be on the development of
effective language and social skills
There clearly are several other areas, such as play
skills, visual motor skills, fine and gross motor, etc.,
but language and social skills are typically the most
significant deficits for children with autism, and
careful training is the key to the most significant gains
What is Language?
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How do we talk about it?
How do we measure it?
What are its parts?
How do we assess it?
How do we teach it?
What theory of language should we use for
children with autism?
A Behavioral Approach
to Autism Treatment
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Behavioral psychology has a lot to offer those who work with
children with autism
Basic teaching procedures and methodology derived from
Applied Behavior Analysis (B-mod, ABA, DTT)
These procedures and methods have a solid research
foundation that can be easily found in over 1500 empirical
studies that have been conducted over the past 60 years
Behavioral Procedures
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Reinforcement
Prompting
Fading
Modeling
Shaping
Chaining
Pairing
Differential reinforcement procedures (e.g., DRO, DRI, DRL)
Intermittent reinforcement procedures (e.g., FR, VR, FI, VI)
Behavioral Procedures
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Extinction procedures (e.g., planned ignoring)
Punishment procedures (e.g., reprimands, time out)
Generalization and maintenance
Discrimination training
Errorless learning
Transfer of stimulus control
Task analysis
Fluency procedures
Contingency contracting
Token economies
Additional Behavioral
Procedures and Methods
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Individualized assessment and intervention program
Frequent opportunities to respond
Use of discrete trial teaching procedures
Incidental & natural environment teaching procedures
Data collection
Interspersal techniques
Behavioral momentum techniques
Independent and peer play training
Social interaction training
Parent and staff training in behavior analysis
Functional analyses of problem behavior (Iwata, et al. 1982)
Shaping
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The differential reinforcement of successive
approximations to a target behavior
Task analysis (small steps)
Changing criteria
The Value of Behavior Analysis
for Children With Autism
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What else does behavioral psychology have to offer?
In addition to the use of specific procedures (e.g., prompting,
fading, and differential reinforcement), a second and critical
contribution of behavioral psychology involves the “analysis” of
the causes of behavior
For example, a functional analysis (antecedent-behaviorconsequence) is a powerful tool for identifying the causes of
problem behavior
Behavioral Psychology:
The three-term contingency (An ABC analysis)
Antecedent
“Come inside”
Behavior
runs away
Consequence
delay to coming in
& being chased
The Value of Behavior Analysis
for Children With Autism
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What else can a behavioral approach offer?
Skinner’s analysis of language found in the book Verbal Behavior
(Skinner, 1957)
Language is learned behavior under the functional control of
environmental variables (Skinner, 1957), just like a tantrum
The same behavioral principles pioneered by Skinner that provide
the foundation of discrete trial training (DDT), applied behavior
analysis (ABA), natural environment training (NET), pivotal
response training (PRT), etc., also provide the foundation for
Skinner’s analysis of language
The Behavioral Classification
of Language
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Skinner (1957) calls this collection of language skills “The
Elementary Verbal Operants” (e.g., mand, tact, echoic,
intraverbal, textual)
The elementary verbal operants are separate repertoires and
functionally independent at the time of acquisition, and each
must be taught
Speaker and listener skills are separate repertoires and each
must be taught
More complex language, such as conversations and language
related to social skills, is comprised of these basic elements
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP
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Based on Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior
Based on typical language development milestones
By identifying milestones, as opposed to a task analysis of
individual skills, the focus can be sharper, and the direction clearer
Field test data from approximately 75 typically developing children
Field test data from over 150 children with autism
Based on the body of empirical research that provides the
foundation of Behavior Analysis
Based on the empirical research on Skinner’s analysis of verbal
behavior
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP
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There are four components of the VB-MAPP
The VB-MAPP: Skills Assessment contains 165 verbal behavior
milestones across 3 developmental levels (0-18 mos., 18-30 mos.,
30-48 mos.) and 16 different verbal operants and related skills
The VB-MAPP: Skills Task Analysis provides a further
breakdown of the different skill areas in the form of a checklist for
skills tracking
The VB MAPP: Barriers Assessment examines 22 common
learning and language barriers faced by children with autism
The VB-MAPP: IEP Goals provides over 200 IEP objectives
directly linked to the skills and barriers assessments, and verbal
behavior intervention program (Sundberg, in preparation)
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment
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The assessment is designed to identify the child’s existing language
and related skills
An assessment should probe a representative sample of a repertoire
Typical verbal milestones can provide the frame for the sample
Typical verbal milestones can help to avoid focusing on only minor
steps
Typical verbal milestones can help to avoid targeting skills for
intervention that are developmentally inappropriate
IEP goals can match the milestones, not individual skills
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment
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The 16 skills assessed on the VB-MAPP include:
The elementary verbal operants (e.g., echoic, imitation, mand, tact,
intraverbal)
The listener skills
Vocal output
Play and social skills
Visual perceptual skills, and matching-to-sample
Grammatical and syntactical skills
Group and classroom skills
Beginning academic skills
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment
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The milestones are broken into three developmental levels (see Skills Form)
Level 1: 0-18 months
Level 2: 18-30 months
Level 3: 30-48 months
The scores for each skill are approximately balanced across each level
There are 5 items and 5 possible points for each skill area (e.g., level 1, tact)
There are three boxes in all sections for three separate administrations
(See Tact Assessment Form Sample)
Each of the 165 items is scored 0, 1, or 1/2 based on the criteria in the
VB-MAPP instruction manual
Looking for the operant level; If the skill is below the operant level score
quickly and move on, if it is close to the operant level, test it
VB-MAPP Level 1: Tact
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment
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The total for the five items is marked on the top of each skill area
The totals for each skill area are added for all three levels and placed on the
VB-MAPP Scoring Form
There are three sub-tests:
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Echoic
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Listener Responding by Function, Feature, and Class (LRFFC)
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Intraverbal
The total score on the sub-test is converted to a milestone score on the VBMAPP forms
The items on these sub-tests, as well as the VB-MAPP in general, have been
adjusted many times based on the field-test data (See VB-MAPP
Assessment Forms)
VB-MAPP samples
VB-MAPPS for
Typically Developing Children
Lisa Hale
Mark L. Sundberg
Rikki Roden
Carl T. Sundberg
Cindy A. Sundberg
VB-MAPPs for
Children with Autism
Mark L. Sundberg
Carl T. Sundberg
Shannon Rosenhan
Shannon Montano
Kaisa Weathers
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
Skills Task Analysis
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The milestones can be considered floors in a building,
and the task analysis contains the steps between each
floor
There are 165 milestones and approximately 600 total
tasks in the VB-MAPP task analysis
The task analysis form also allows for more detailed skills
tracking
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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It is important to find out what a child can do (The VB-MAPP Skills
Assessment), but also important to know what they can’t do, and analyze why
they can’t do it
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment is a tool that is designed to identify and
score 22 different learning and language acquisition barriers
Once a specific barrier has been identified, a more detailed descriptive and/or
functional analysis of that problem is required
There are many ways that a verbal repertoire or related skill can become
defective, and an individualized analysis will be necessary to determine what the
nature of the problem is for a specific child, and what intervention program
might be appropriate
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Common Learning and Language Acquisition Barriers
Instructional control (Escape/avoidance)
Behavior problems
Defective mand
Defective tact
Defective motor imitation
Defective echoic (e.g., echolalia)
Defective matching-to-sample
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Common Learning and Language Acquisition Barriers
Defective listener repertoires (e.g., LD, LRFFC)
Defective intraverbal
Defective play and social skills
Prompt dependent, long latencies
Scrolling responses
Defective scanning skills
Failure to make conditional discriminations (CDs)
Failure to generalize
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Common Learning and Language Acquisition Barriers
Weak or atypical MOs
Response requirements weakens the MO
Self-stimulation
Articulation problems
Obsessive-compulsive behavior
Reinforcement dependent
Does not attend to people/materials
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Scoring the VB-MAPP Barriers Form
Rate the child on the VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment Form using a Likert-type scale of 1
to 5
A score of 1 or 2 would indicate that there are no significant barriers, and a formal
intervention plan may not be required.
A score of 3, 4, or 5 would indicate that there is a barrier, that probably should be
addressed as part of the intervention program
For some children the immediate focus of the intervention program is on removing a
particular barrier, rather than language instruction
The most common immediate barriers to remove involve instructional control problems,
or other behavior problems
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Defective Verbal Behavior
A descriptive functional analysis of verbal behavior (Skinner, Chap 1)
A behavioral analysis of words, phrases, and sentences emitted by children with
autism
Same basic principles of behavior as nonverbal behavior
What is the source of control?
These sources of control will often reveal that what appears to be a correct response
in form is actually incorrect in function
Might not be the same source of control observed in a typically developing child
(e.g., I have a red shirt on)
Each verbal operant can be susceptible to unwanted sources of control
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Defective Verbal Behavior
Defective mands (I want candy. What’s that?)
Defective tacts (Bounce ball, Black car, Under table)
Defective intraverbal responses (Poopies evoked by What do you smell in the
oven?)
The behavior analyst must determine what the correct source of control should
be, and how that source can be established
The functional analysis of verbal behavior is on-going
The failure to conduct such an analysis may result in rote or defective verbal
repertoires that can become difficult to change
This is how behavior analysis is different, this is what we do
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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An Analysis of a Defective Mand Repertoire
A substantial number of children with autism have an absent, weak, or defective mand
repertoire
Many of these same children have extensive tact and listener skills, as well as other
elevated scores on the VB-MAPP Skills assessment
Often, under these circumstances it is not uncommon to see the child engage in a tantrum
or some other form of negative behavior as a mand
A word acquired under SD control may not automatically transfer to MO control
This distinction between SD and MO antecedent control is not systematically
incorporated into many of the popular language assessment and intervention programs
designed for children with autism
There are many potential causes of a defective mand repertoire and a functional analysis
is necessary to determine the cause for an individual child
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Potential causes of an absent, weak, or defective mand repertoire.
Mand training is not part of the child’s early language training history
The target response form is too difficult for the child
When a child has no or limited vocal behavior, sign language or PECS has not been tried
The response requirement is too high and weakens the relevant MO
There is no current MO in effect for targeted item (e.g., satiation, weak to begin with)
The response is prompt bound by physical, echoic, imitative, or verbal stimuli
A nonverbal stimulus acquires control of the response and blocks MO control
A verbal stimulus acquires control of the response and blocks MO control
Motivation (MO) does not control the response form
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Potential causes of an absent, weak, or defective mand repertoire
The child has weak MOs in general
Free or cheap access to reinforcers without manding
Self-stimulation or obsessive behaviors compete with other MOs
A small group of mands has a strong history of reinforcement (e.g., cookies, juice,
Skittles)
There is a limited availability of established imitative or echoic responses
No variation in captured or contrived MOs
Negative behavior functions as mands
Inappropriate mands become too strong and are intermittently reinforced
The curriculum is poorly sequenced
Fading out the object/nonverbal stimulus too soon
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Potential causes of an absent, weak, or defective mand repertoire
A single response topography functions as the mand (e.g., more, please, that)
Can’t establish differential response topographies
Scrolling gets reinforced
Not enough mand trials are provided each day
Poor audience control
Mands only required and reinforced in specific setting
Generalization training is not provided
Verbal information does not function as reinforcement for the child
Manding does not come under the control of natural contingencies
A history of punishment for attempts at manding
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and
Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Potential causes of scrolling
Responses that are first trained are not completely acquired (weak SD control)
Failure to identify that scrolling is occurring
The response is actually under a specific type of prompt rather than the target SD
The amount of discrimination training is insufficient
New words/signs are added too quickly
Scrolling gets intermittently reinforced
New stimuli and new responses are too similar
For mands, new MOs and specific reinforcement are similar to the earlier ones
Maintenance and generalization trials are insufficient
Failure to reinforce first wrong response evokes the next response
Curriculum is out of sequence
Scrolling is less work than discriminating
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Instructional control/non-compliance (escape and avoidance)
Many children with autism have learned to emit a variety of negative and disruptive
behaviors to avoid or terminate demands placed upon them (CMO-R)
These behaviors range from mild behaviors such as looking away or not responding, to
severe aggressive and self-injurious behaviors
However, the function of the behaviors is often the same: to escape from doing things
they don’t want to do (e.g., hair brushing, car seats, instructional demands), or any stimuli
that indicate that unwanted things or activities are coming (avoidance) (e.g., bedtime,
turning off the TV, table tasks)
These types of behaviors are common in typically developing children, but can become
quite severe for a child with autism
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There are a number of potential causes for instructional control problems. It is the job of
the behavior analyst conduct a descriptive and/or functional analysis to determine the
specific cause for each individual child
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Potential causes of noncompliant behaviors
Avoidance or escape of the demand is (negatively) reinforced (not followed through)
The child has a long history of successful avoidance and escape behavior
Extinction bursts are reinforced
Intermittent reinforcement develops persistence
Positive reinforcement also follows the negative behaviors
Not enough reinforcement is provided for compliance
Effective reinforcers are not identified, or they cannot compete with negative reinforcement
The demand is too high (e.g., task expectations and curriculum issues)
The demands are unclear or vague
The demand require that the child give up powerful reinforcers
The demands are in the form of threats (coercive)
The steps to successful compliance are too large
The intervention program is inconsistent
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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An Analysis of a Defective Tact Repertoire
The tact repertoire is less susceptible to becoming defective than the mand or intraverbal, due in
part, to the nature of the controlling variables for the tact
Nonverbal stimulus control is more measurable and accessible, and in general, much clearer than
motivational control (mand), and verbal stimulus control (intraverbal)
It is often the case that the wrong nonverbal stimulus acquires control of a tact
For example, when teaching tacts related to verbs, the goal is that the specific moving nonverbal
stimulus evokes a specific response, not the object related to the movement
Some children learn to emit a word that is a verb in form but not in function, as in the response
Drinking juice when just shown a cup, or Throwing ball when shown a ball
Similar problems can be observed in efforts to teach tacts related to prepositions and adjectives
(e.g., above and below, big and little)
Gone unchecked, these tacting errors can be difficult to change and can become the source of other
verbal problems later in training, such as intraverbal rote responding
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective tact repertoire
A limited amount of formal tact training has been provided
Other barriers such as instructional control dominate the educational activities
Articulation is unintelligible, and augmentative communication has not been tried
Tacting is prompt bound by echoic, imitative, or other SDs (e.g., lip prompts)
Scrolling through targeted tacts gets reinforced
Single response tacts have been over conditioned
Limited training with multiple SDs and multiple response tacting
The wrong source of control is established (e.g., tacting verbs or emotions from pictures)
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective tact repertoire
Failure to analyze complexities of tacts involving prepositions, pronouns,
adjectives, private events, social behavior, etc.
Verbal stimuli do not establish a feature of nonverbal stimuli as an SD (IV/Tact
combo)
Poorly sequenced curriculum
Generalization training is not provided (stimulus and response classes)
No spontaneous tacting due to additional prompts in training (SD effect)
No spontaneous tacting due to aversive variables present in training (MOReflexive)
Tacting not reinforced by natural or automatic contingencies
The child has a punishment history for tacting
Excessive or inappropriate tacting gets reinforced
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
An Analysis of a Defective Intraverbal Repertoire
Intraverbal behavior is most prone to becoming rote for children with autism
The task of directly teaching intraverbal behavior is complicated and endless
Early intraverbal training is pretty straight forward, but by 3-4 years of age, a typical
child acquires 1000s of different intraverbal relations
Most adults have hundreds of thousands of different intraverbal relations as a part of
their verbal repertoires (e.g., newspaper, books, the internet)
Contact with these verbal stimuli can evoke numerous intraverbal responses, such as
discussions of the facts (e.g., global warming, autism, SD vs. the MO)
The number of different intraverbal relations far outnumbers the number of different
mands and tacts. The frequency of mands may be greater than intraverbals, but often the
mands are related to a relatively small set of MOs
Language would be simple if a verbal repertoire was like a passenger list on a ship or
plane (Skinner, 1957)
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
An Analysis of a Defective Intraverbal Repertoire
Many children with autism have a great deal of difficulty acquiring meaningful intraverbal behavior.
Some have acquired 100s of tacts and LDs, but fail to acquire more than a few simple intraverbal
relations
Tacting, imitation, echoic, matching, LDs, textual, and transcriptive have a degree of sameness that
may come easier for children with autism than intraverbal behavior
Not only are the antecedents for these repertoires more consistent and clearer, but also the response
is frequently the same (A spoon is usually Spoon, 2 is always Two)
Intraverbal relations, by their very nature, involve constantly changing SDs and responses
For example, a tree is always a tree for echoic, tacting, matching, etc., but the discussion about trees
can be comprised of hundreds, if not thousands, of different intraverbal relations
Furthermore, the discussion about trees may never occur exactly the same way each time
However, this type of defective intraverbal behavior is not uncommon for some high functioning
individuals with autism, and especially those with Aspergers
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
An Analysis of a Defective Intraverbal Repertoire
Verbal SDs are usually much more complicated than the nonverbal SDs
Verbal SDs usually contain multiple components, occurring in a brief time frame
Multiple words as SDs almost always involve verbal conditional discriminations
Vocal verbal stimuli are transitory, nonverbal stimuli tend to be more static
Attending to verbal SDs is often more laborious than attending to nonverbal SDs
Visual stimuli may block the establishment of control by verbal stimuli
Many words that are not clearly evoked by a corresponding nonverbal stimulus (e.g., the,
a, can’t, usually, if, its, for, of, anyway, whatever) but form the VCDs
IV responses are typically more complex than responses associated with tacts
The MLU of a tact tends to be much shorter than the MLU for an intraverbal
There is often only so much that can be said about a specific nonverbal stimulus (e.g.,
the tact bike vs, IV story about a bike)
The tact response is often shaped to include only the salient information
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective intraverbal repertoire
The child has not received formal intraverbal training
The child is given training, but it’s too early to focus on intraverbals
The child’s echoic repertoire is too strong (echolalia)
Nonverbal stimuli control response form (tact prompt bound)
MOs control response forms (strong IVs on favorite topics)
The intraverbal curriculum is out of developmental and behavioral sequence
Rote intraverbal responses have been firmly established due to conditioning history
Out of context or irrelevant intraverbal training may establish odd forms of IV behavior
Single verbal stimuli and single verbal responses have been over conditioned
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective intraverbal repertoire
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The specific target responses are not in the child’s repertoire as tacts, LDs, or LRFFCs
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The child does not attend to multiple verbal stimuli (S-deltas)
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The child does not have sufficient training on verbal conditional discriminations
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Verbal stimulus classes have not been established
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Verbal response classes have not been established
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Poor audience control
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No automatic reinforcement for IV behavior
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A punishment history for intraverbal behavior
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An extinction history for intraverbal behavior
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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An Analysis of a Defective Listener Repertoire
The behavior of the listener involves several independent repertoires
The listener as an audience for the verbal behavior of others
The listener’s nonverbal behavior evoked by the words of others
The listener’s covert verbal behavior evoked by the words of others (this part is actually
speaker behavior, but commonly and erroneously referred to as listener, or receptive,
behavior.
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Some Common Causes of an Absent, Weak, or
Defective Listener Repertoire
The speech of others does not function as a conditioned reinforcer
The speech of others does not function as an SD for attending
The child does not reinforce the verbal behavior of others
The child does not mediate reinforcement for the verbal behavior of others
The child has not become an SD for certain verbal behavior from others
The child has not received formal listener training
Scrolling get reinforced in listener training
Inadvertent prompts control correct responses (eye gazes, position, hand placement)
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Some Common Causes of an Absent, Weak, or
Defective Listener Repertoire
The child has a weak conditional discrimination repertoire
Verbal stimuli does not evoke scanning (or attending to the array)
The child has been over conditioned with limited array
The child has been over conditioned with single stimulus and single response
Generalization training has not provided (stimulus and response classes)
The child stims with the materials
No LRFFC training has been provided
The curriculum is poorly sequenced
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective visual perception and
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matching-to-sample repertoire
The child may have some type of vision impairment
The child has not received formal training on visual discrimination tasks
Adults have poor instructional control
The child stims with materials
The targeted visual tasks are out of developmental sequence (curriculum)
The child is prompt bound by position, body movement, eye or pointing
prompts, etc.
There is a reinforcement history for position preference, or specific response
patterns
Scrolling behavior gets reinforced
A verbal consequence like No is really an SD to pick another item
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective visual perception and
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matching-to-sample repertoire
If no reinforcement is provided for first selection, the child quickly selects another item
There is a failure to scan visual arrays and comparisons efficiently
There is a failure to make conditional discriminations
Over conditioning with a small array (limited array variation)
The task is too easy because the comparison stimuli are very different from each other
Limited training with large arrays, scenes, and arrays in the natural environment
Limited training with similar stimuli in the array
Limited training with large arrays and similar stimuli in scenes and in the natural
environment
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Some Common Causes of an Absent, Weak, or
Defective Listener Repertoire
The child has a weak conditional discrimination repertoire
Verbal stimuli does not evoke scanning (or attending to the array)
The child has been over conditioned with limited array
The child has been over conditioned with single stimulus and single response
Generalization training has not provided (stimulus and response classes)
The child stims with the materials
No LRFFC training has been provided
The curriculum is poorly sequenced
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective echoic repertoire
Physiological variables (e.g., weak muscle control, severe illnesses, cerebral palsy)
Little or no training or encouragement of echoic responding has been provided
Weak automatic reinforcement for echoic and vocal behavior
Possible automatic punishment (or other forms of punishment) for vocal behavior
The child demonstrates a low rate of babbling or vocal play
Adults have poor instructional control
Vocal self-stimulation interferes with echoic development
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Some common causes of an absent, weak, or defective echoic repertoire
The child has weak MOs for social interaction with other people
The child doesn’t attend to vocal stimuli
The targeted vocal sounds, blends, and words are out of developmental sequence
The child has an aversive (failure) history regarding attempts to teach echoic behavior
Generalization training has not been provided
Repertoire too strong (echolalia, prompt bound)
Automatic reinforcement for out-of-context verbal responses (“Delayed echolalia”)
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and
Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Potential causes of scrolling
Responses that are first trained are not completely acquired (weak SD control)
Failure to identify that scrolling is occurring
The response is actually under a specific type of prompt rather than the target SD
The amount of discrimination training is insufficient
New words/signs are added too quickly
Scrolling gets intermittently reinforced
New stimuli and new responses are too similar
For mands, new MOs and specific reinforcement are similar to the earlier ones
Maintenance and generalization trials are insufficient
Failure to reinforce first wrong response evokes the next response
Curriculum is out of sequence
Scrolling is less work than discriminating
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Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
Instructional control/non-compliance (escape and avoidance)
Many children with autism have learned to emit a variety of negative and disruptive
behaviors to avoid or terminate demands placed upon them (CMO-R)
These behaviors range from mild behaviors such as looking away or not responding, to
severe aggressive and self-injurious behaviors
However, the function of the behaviors is often the same: to escape from doing things
they don’t want to do (e.g., hair brushing, car seats, instructional demands), or any stimuli
that indicate that unwanted things or activities are coming (avoidance) (e.g., bedtime,
turning off the TV, table tasks)
These types of behaviors are common in typically developing children, but can become
quite severe for a child with autism
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There are a number of potential causes for instructional control problems. It is the job of
the behavior analyst conduct a descriptive and/or functional analysis to determine the
specific cause for each individual child
Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment
and Placement Program:
The VB-MAPP Barriers Assessment
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Potential causes of noncompliant behaviors
Avoidance or escape of the demand is (negatively) reinforced (not followed through)
The child has a long history of successful avoidance and escape behavior
Extinction bursts are reinforced
Intermittent reinforcement develops persistence
Positive reinforcement also follows the negative behaviors
Not enough reinforcement is provided for compliance
Effective reinforcers are not identified, or they cannot compete with negative reinforcement
The demand is too high (e.g., task expectations and curriculum issues)
The demands are unclear or vague
The demand require that the child give up powerful reinforcers
The demands are in the form of threats (coercive)
The steps to successful compliance are too large
The intervention program is inconsistent
Thank You!
For more information on verbal behavior
and links to other material go to:
www.marksundberg.com