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Published September 2022 Filed in Autismcategory

Say What? Looking at Language Through the Lens of Verbal Behavior

Why do we communicate?

Often, when providing communication instruction in the classroom, the focus is on making requests or labeling items in the environment.  Take a moment, though, and think of all the reasons and ways you take part in communicating. 

speech bubble with the words why do you communicate

We communicate to share information, comment, ask questions, develop social relationships, confirm, deny, persuade, clarify, and more! We don’t communicate simply to request and label. 

Verbal Behavior

Using the principles of verbal behavior is one way to spread the focus of communication instruction across many purposes. Verbal behavior is a way of assessing and teaching language that focuses on the fact that the meaning of word can be found in the function for which it serves; it goes beyond what someone is saying by also considering WHY they are saying it. When looking at verbal behavior, several repertoires are addressed, including mands, tacts, echoics, intraverbals, and listener responses. 

Graphic of bread with the following examples: Tact - you smell bread so you say "yum bread"; Intraverbal - someone asks you "what is your favorite food?, and you say bread"; and - you are hungry so you ask for bread; Echoic - parent says mmm bread and child says mmm bread; Listener Response - you hear someone say bring me the bread, so you bring them bread.

Expanding Language Through Verbal Behavior Principles

When using the principles of verbal behavior for teaching across these repertoires, language is treated as a behavior that is taught, shaped, and reinforced. Skills in one repertoire are often transferred to new skills in another repertoire to expand a student’s ability to use a word for multiple functions. Learner’s experience reinforcement for all forms and functions of language.

Resources in the TTAC ODU Lending Library

Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP)

Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills – Revised (ABLLS-R)

Verbal Behavior Approach: How to Teach Children with Autism and Related Disorders

The Big Book of ABA Programs: An ABA Program and IEP Goal for Every Teachable Step in the ABLLS-R

Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities

Motivation and Reinforcement: Turning the Tables on Autism

Tags: Autism, Communication, verbal behavior

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