Reinforcement of verbal social behavior in moderately retarded children.
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The verbal behavior of untrained paraprofessionals in simulated initial helping interactions was studied. Taped interviews conducted by 131 helpers-in-training were evaluated on the Helping Skills Verbal Response System, a category system consisting of continuing, leading, and self-referent responses. Helpers were found to vary considerably in number and types of responses given. Leading responses were twice as frequent as continuing responses. The most often used response was the closed question. Few responses focusing on helpees' feelings were given. The implications for training were discussed in terms of the facilitative role of helpers in initial helping interactions.
Behavioral research in teaching verbal behavior to language-delayed and developmentally disabled preschool children has progressed greatly during the past 30 years. It is now possible to produce improvements in the verbal behavior of language-delayed and developmentally disabled children that previously would have been considered impossible. Not only is it possible to teach language-delayed children a wide variety of individual elements and forms of speech, such as plurals, adjectives, syntax, and grammar, but it is also possible to achieve functional language in nonverbal children and produce total recovery in some autistic and functionally mentally retarded preschool children. The results of our research with the TALK Language Development Program provide techniques, procedures, and new directions to further advance the technology of verbal behavior. First, development of a standard procedure for the analysis, reinforcement, and recording of verbal behavior provides a precise and standard method for evaluating the effect of contingencies of reinforcement on verbal behavior. Second, the TALK program, by systematizing and operationalizing the process of shaping functional language, provides a program that is relatively easily learned by therapists, teachers, speech pathologists, and others. Third, the robustness and reliability of the TALK program, as demonstrated by replication across diagnostic groups, settings, and therapists, makes it an attractive program for use with a variety of developmentally disabled children. Fourth, the identification of specific parent-child reinforcement paradigms that appear to be functionally related to language delay may facilitate research in the prevention of language delay. Finally, our research with functionally retarded children and normal infants has led to the development of a behavioral strategy and technology for the prevention of and total recovery from some cases of language delay and functional mental retardation. At least two important opportunities now exist for making a substantial social impact through the technology of verbal behavior. First, the passage of Public Law 99-457 has created a major need for effective language programs that can be used by public school teachers of handicapped preschool children. The need will increase as more programs for the birth to 3 population are mandated. This presents a major opportunity for transferring the technology of verbal behavior to other professionals who are in daily contact with young handicapped preschool children, such as teachers, speech pathologists, pediatricians, and social workers.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
The role of prior verbal training in correspondence training and later verbal control of nonverbal behavior was examined in two groups of Head Start children. One group received correspondence training without prior verbal training, the other with. Essentially no differences were found between the two sequences; thus it seems appropriate to consider the content phases (reinforcement contingent on target verbalization alone) of previous research as control procedures and not a necessary precursor to correspondence training.
BACKGROUND: Verbally disruptive behaviors (VDB) are verbal or vocal behaviors that are inappropriate to the circumstances in which they are manifested. These behaviors are a source of concern because they disturb persons around the older person and may be an indicator of distress. METHODS: Three interventions were tried and compared to a control no-intervention phase. The interventions were: (1) Presentation of a videotape of a family member talking to the older person, (2) in vivo social interaction, and (3) use of music. RESULTS: Thirty-two nursing home residents suffering from dementia and manifesting VDB were observed before, during, and after the interventions, and the duration of VDB was recorded. The behaviors decreased by 56% during the social interaction, 46% during the videotape, 31% during the music, and 16% during the no-intervention. CONCLUSIONS: The effects of the interventions were clinically and statistically significant, indicating the importance of providing stimulating activities and a richer environment to cognitively impaired nursing home residents.
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We studied perceived partner verbal behaviors associated with participants' use of dating aggression. Men's reports of their partners' demanding, controlling, and psychologically abusive behaviors during conflicts were expected to predict men's perpetration against partners. In contrast, women's reports of their partners' withdrawal were expected to predict women's perpetration. Data were collected from heterosexual undergraduates (N = 223) in exclusive dating relationships. Participants' reports of partner demands and partner psychological abuse were associated with participants' use of physical aggression and sexual coercion. Reports of partner withdrawal and partner controlling behaviors were associated with participants' sexual coercion only. Significant moderating effects of gender emerged. As expected, partner demands, controlling behaviors, and psychological abuse were associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in men, but not women. Partner withdrawal was associated with sexual coercion in both women and men. We conclude that gender-sensitive approaches are necessary to understand and prevent verbal conflict patterns associated with physical aggression and sexual coercion in intimate relationships.
Children as young as 18 months display sex-stereotyped toy choices. The present study was designed to determine whether parents encourage involvement with sex-stereotyped toys or avoidance of cross-sex-stereotyped toys and to determine whether masculine and feminine toys lead to different patterns of parent-child interaction, regardless of gender. 40 parent-toddler dyads were videotaped while playing with 6 different sets of sex-stereotyped toys. Equal numbers of boys and girls were observed with mothers and fathers. The children showed greater involvement when playing with same-sex-typed toys than with cross-sex toys even when statistically controlling for parents' behaviors. Parents' verbal behaviors, involvement, and proximity to the child differed across toy groups, regardless of the parent's or child's gender. Parents' initial nonverbal responses to the toys, however, were more positive when the toys were stereotyped for the child's and parent's gender than when they were not.
Based upon assumptions of Gestalt Therapy, an objective, reliable scoring system for analyzing a specific aspect of verbal behavior, avoidant verbalization, was developed. Verbal samples were elicited from 30 female college students who previously had been rank ordered on the Neuroticism scale of the Maudsley Personality Inventory. The expectation that psychologically stressful questions would result in a significantly greater number of avoidant verbalizations was confirmed. Contrary to another expectation, no significant correlation between neuroticism as measured by the MPI and total number of avoidant verbalizations uttered by the Ss was found. Results were interpreted on the basis of the Gestalt Therapy theory of personality.
Three autistic students were trained to request a specific object from an adult "supplier" with the sentence, "Give me--" and to deliver that object to another adult, the "director." Subsequently, the degree to which the object offered by the supplier controlled the "Give me--" verbal response was assessed by delivering to the student an object other than the one requested. Despite knowing the names of all objects used in the experiment, students accepted and delivered to the director any object offered by the supplier regardless of its match with the requested object. After training to say "That's not it. Give me--" when nonrequested objects were offered, students responded differentially to requested and nonrequested objects, suggesting control of the "Give me--" response by the requested object, a characteristic of a mand. These results generalized across settings and objects. Results are discussed in terms of the training technique to establish manding and the functional analysis of the resulting verbal behavior.
Behaviorists have theorized (and experimental analyses suggest) the potential clinical application of verbal behavior modification. This study evaluated therapeutic effects of behavioral intervention to modify the intact verbal community. The setting was an adolescent operant treatment center for behavioral disorders. All residents within the center, 16 females and 22 males, participated in the study. A within subjects experimental design compared effects of a positive verbal community (PVC) plus the ongoing operant treatment program to the operant program alone. Conceptually, these were dual-level and single-level operant programs, respectively. Dependent measures included rates of positive goal-relevant verbalizations of residents, and clinical measures of self-control and psychiatric symptoms. Preliminary evidence supported the feasibility of the PVC as a potential novel therapeutic intervention.
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OBJECTIVE: A behavioral intensive care unit was originally designed as a 21-day inpatient program for treating agitation among demented patients, one of the most common behavioral disorders in this group. Due to the need to dramatically reduce length of stay and create alternative care environments, the original model was modified into an integrated continuum of care blending inpatient and outpatient care and partial hospitalization that reduced hospitalization from 21 to an average of seven days. This quasiexperimental study compared the effectiveness of the inpatient and continuum-of-care programs and conducted cost analyses. METHODS: Subjects were inpatients diagnosed with both dementia and agitation. Outcomes of 68 patients treated in the inpatient program were compared with those of 110 patients treated in the continuum of care. The primary outcome measure was patients' score on the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory, which provides a total agitation score and scores on three factors describing agitated behavior--physically aggressive behavior, verbally aggressive behavior, and nonaggressive behavior. RESULTS: A statistically significant reduction in agitation was found for patients treated in both programs, with no significant difference in outcome between programs. Patients in both programs showed significant improvements in physical aggression, verbal aggression, and nonaggressive behavior. The cost-effectiveness analysis revealed clear advantages for the continuum-of-care program, especially in the area of aggressive behaviors. CONCLUSIONS: The data suggest that the restructured program is an effective and economically feasible intervention.
The verbal helping behavior of experienced and novice volunteer telephone counselors was evaluated. Taped telephone interactions with typical helpees were analyzed for the usage of specific response types and for helper talk time, self-references, and feelings. Novices were found to give significantly less advice and their helpees talked significantly longer. The use of continuing responses was significantly associated with helpee talk time for all helpers. Even though telephone counseling may elicit a leading response style from helpers, a continuing or reflective style might be more effective in the relationship-building aspect of telephone counseling.
Improved social functioning of adolescents with behavioral disorders (BD) is of critical importance for the successful integration of these students in school, domestic, vocational, and community settings. Three comparisons were addressed in the study; overall verbal responding of BD adolescents was compared to verbal responding of their regular class peers, verbal responding of the same BD adolescents was compared across their self-contained and mainstreamed settings, and responding of the BD adolescents when in mainstreamed settings was compared to responding of regular class peers. Portable microcomputers were used to collect data across 10 categories of verbal responding for 14 BD adolescents and 14 regular class peers. Results supported several general conclusions: (a) Adolescents with behavioral disorders engaged in more negative verbal responding than their regular class peers; (b) BD adolescents exhibited less inappropriate verbal behavior when in the mainstream than when self-contained; and (c) when in the mainstream, the verbal behavior of BD students was similar to that of their regular class peers. Implications of the general and specific differences that emerged from the comparisons were presented and discussed.
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Language training procedures, which involved positive reinforcement for verbal imitation, were applied to increase the appropriate verbal behavior of an almost non-verbal, brain damaged, 5-yr-old boy. Two experiments assessed the effectiveness of timeout from positive reinforcement as a training procedure viewed as having potential punishing and negatively reinforcing functions. In both experiments, timein, termination of timeout and resumption of training, was arranged to have reinforcing properties in that it presented an opportunity to receive positive reinforcers. In Exp. I, the procedure consisted of temporarily halting language training (timeout) following verbal jargon and resuming it (timein) contingent upon the boy sitting quietly in his chair for approximately 30 sec. The jargon declined to almost zero for an extended period each time the procedure was employed. In Exp. II, the procedure consisted of halting language training (timeout) after emission of undesired verbal responses which previously had been reinforced as the desired approximation to the target verbal behavior. Resumption of training (timein) was made contingent upon the emission of the then-desired approximation of the target verbal behavior. In each experiment, the contingent timeout and timein of the language training that involved positive reinforcement effectively reduced the undesired and increased the desired responses.