Naming and Verbal Behavior

Caio Miguel, Ph.D., BCBA-DCalifornia State University,

Sacramento

Naming

• What is naming?

• How is naming developed?

• The importance of naming

• Teaching naming

• Using naming to produce novel behavior

• Speaker engages in behavior that affects the behavior of others

• Listener is affected by the behavior of the speaker

“Can I have some

water?”

gets water

“Can I have some

water?”

receives water

“Thank you”

“Thank you”

Verbal Behavior

• The behavior of an individual that has been reinforced through the mediation of another person’s behavior (the listener).

• Applies to written behavior, signs, gestures, and picture exchange

• Listener must have learned to respond in order to reinforce the behavior of the speaker.

• We all play the roles of speaker and listener at the same time

• We can react as a listener to our own verbal behavior

• Understand how environmental variables affect verbal behavior

Mand

• VB under the influence of the speaker’s motivation. The consequence for the mand is specific.

• “Water” when water deprived.

• “I want a cappuccino” when tired/caffeine

• “It is hot here” when wanting to cool off.

• “Would you mind taking the garbage out?”

• “You look beautiful today...can I borrow some money?

Tact

• VB in which form of the behavior is influenced by an immediately prior nonverbal stimulus (an object, action, of property). The consequence for the tact is non-specific.

• “Water” when seeing a bottle of water.

• “I feel thirsty” when describing a private event.

• “Look at his purple tie !” when seeing one.

• “Thank you”

Intraverbal

• VB occasioned by what someone says, signs or writes. No point-to-point correspondence between stimulus and response.

• Saying “vehicle” as a result of hearing “car”

• Saying “Caio”as a result of hearing “what’s your name?”

• Saying “drive”as a result of hearing “what do you do with a car?”

Duplic and Codic

• Duplic: Echoic and copying a text.

• Codic: Textual, taking dictation.

Michael, 1982

Echoic

• When the verbal behavior produces similar sound patters as the verbal antecedent stimulus (what was heard).

• “Water” when hearing “Water”

Textual & Taking Dictation

• Reading aloud

• Writing what is heard

Naming

• Horne and Lowe (1996) emphasized the importance of the individual serving as a speaker and listener within the same skin.

• Informed by other accounts of language development (Vygotzky and Mead)

• Informed by research on language development

Listener

• Children learn to listen before they learn to speak

• Learn to discriminate caregiver’s speech sounds

• Caregiver names objects (Richelle, 1993)

• Speak slowly, use accentuated single names in simplified syntax, repeat them many times (Snow, 1977)

Listener

• Caregiver notes what children are looking at (or playing with) before they talk about it (Masur, 1982)

• Caregiver indicates the object that he/she names (joint attention)

• Child learns to follow a point and then point to the object herself, which serves as a cue for the caregiver’s naming of the object (Foster, 1979). Child also picks up or shows objects to caregiver

Listener

• Caregiver models and reinforces conventional behavior (Kaye, 1982).

• Note importance of generalized imitation

• Extension of listener behavior to other exemplars and with the frame:

• “Where’s the __?”

Listener Behavior

Horne & Lowe, 1996

Echoic Relation

• Children imitate the speech of caregivers (9 to 13 months old; Poulson, Kymissis, Reeve, Andreatos, & Reeve, 1991)

• When the caregiver names an object the child can not only engage in listener, but also echoic behavior

• Echoics may also occur at the covert level

• This is when the child becomes speaker-listener to her own verbal behavior

• Listens to herself (verbal thinking?)

Listener:Echoic

Horne & Lowe, 1996

Tact Relation

• Caregiver’s vocalization occasions the child’s echoic response in the presence of the object

• Caregiver provides reinforcement for the child’s echoic behavior

• Over time, the object itself influences the child’s vocal response (tact)

Naming

• Tacts emerge from the interaction between echoics and listener behavior.

• This may explain why there’s almost never a tact without listener behavior (Whynn & Smith, 2003).

• When a child tacts an object, a verbal stimulus is generated which in turn may evoke listener behavior

• At this point we say the child can name the object

Listener : Echoic : Tact

Horne & Lowe, 1996

Naming

Horne & Lowe, 1996

Naming

• Naming involves a bi-directional relation between the spoken word and a particular stimulus

• Naming is said to exist when the reinforcement of a listener relation is accompanied by the emergence of a speaker relation and vice-versa (Horne & Lowe, 1996; Miguel & Petursdottir, 2009)

Importance of Naming

• Naming makes it possible for children to learn language incidentally (Greer & Longano, 2010)

• Children with disabilities without naming would have to be taught every verbal function separately

• They may not be able to learn from experience

Importance of Naming

• Foundational skill in learning to read and write (Greer & Longano, 2010).

• The child will hear herself and “recognize” the word

Fi re man

“Fireman” /Fireman/

Comprehension

Importance of Naming

• Children who lack naming have :

• Poor comprehension (Helou-Care, 2008)

• May not able to spell or take dictation (Greer, Yuan, & Gautreaux, 2005)

Importance of Naming

• Naming may lead to the acquisition of intraverbal behavior (Horne & Lowe, 1996)

• Naming may lead to the acquisition of mands (Horne & Lowe, 1996)

Importance of Naming

• Naming is central in understanding “meaning”

• When we name an object we recognize it (Mead, 1934)

• We react to it as a member of a class or category (e.g., “cake”)

• So naming is symbolic behavior (Horne & Lowe, 1996)

Importance of Naming

• Naming leads to stimulus categorization (Miguel & Petursdottir, 2009)

• When objects produce the same name, they acquire the same meaning

• If dissimilar objects are called “toys,” then children will sort them accordingly

Where’s the “CAT?”

Echoic

“CAT?”

SR+

Listener

Tact

Teaching Naming

• Assess pre-requisite skills

• Generalized echoic repertoire

• Basic tacts and listener relations involving same stimuli

• Instructional control

• Tact Training

• Train at least three targets to mastery

• Listener Test

• Test the three mastered targets on a receptive discrimination task

• Train and probe

• Continue training tacts and testing for receptive discrimination

• If following tact training, the child typically responds on listener trials, than tact training resulted in naming

Teaching Naming

• If the child does not respond as a listener following tact training, train the listener relation directly, then go to train another tact and probe the listener

• MEI utilizing task interspersal can also be used

MEI

Greer et al., 2007

Verbal Modules

• Instructor: “Touch the car”

• Student: Touches the picture of the car (receptive)

• Instructor: “What is it?”

• Student: “Car”

• Instructor: “Say ball”

• Student: “ball”

• Instructor: holds up a picture of a ball, and says “what is it?”

• Student: “ball”

Naming and Categorization

• When objects produce the same name, they acquire the same meaning

• Individuals react similarly to stimuli that produce the same name; these stimuli become members of the same class, or category

“Animal”

”Animal”

”Animal” ”Animal”

“Animal”

“Animal”

Naming and Categorization

• Categorization (sorting objects or pictures by category) seems to develop with no direct training when typically-developing children learn to name (Horne, Lowe, & Harris, 2007; Horne, Lowe, Harris & Randle, 2004; Lowe, Horne, & Randle, 2002; Lowe, Horne, & Hughes, 2005; Mahoney, Miguel, Ahearn, & Bell, 2010; Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, 2008)

Categorization

• Assess whether participants would show derived categorization and listener skills after learning to tact pictures with common names.

• Two children diagnosed with autism, Donald (6 years) and Jonathan (5 years) participated.

• Generalized identity matching.

Categorization

• Categorizations: Percentage of correct responses in a 3-choice visual-visual matching-to-sample (MTS) task

• Listener Behavior: Percentage of correct responses in a 3-choice auditory-visual MTS task

Categorization

• A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across participants

• Experimental conditions: Pretraining, categorization tests, listener tests, tact training, categorization posttests and listener posttests.

Categorization

• Speaker training alone can produce novel categorization.

• There was a clear transfer from speaker to listener behavior (i.e., naming) and both categorized successfully.

• Initial support for clinical recommendations (Miguel & Petursdottir, 2008).

In press, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders

A further evaluation of the effects of listener training on derived categorization and speaker behavior in children

with autism

Greg P. Lee, Caio F. Miguel, Emily K. Darcey, Adrienne M. JenningsCalifornia State University, Sacramento

/work dog/

“Work dog”(Speaker)

(Listener)

Applied Implications

• Categorizing and classifying objects and events in our environment is an important skill

• it is a way to relate to objects and events in our environment, especially novel ones

• Clinicians may be able to produce novel categorization via either speaker or listener training

• Results seemed dependent upon a well-established naming repertoire (Greer et al., 2007)

Teaching Categorization

• Simple tact training

• Multiple-tact training

• “What is this? ____” “right, this is a ___ and?”

• Category test

• Sorting or MTS

• Troubleshoot?

Conclusion

• The naming repertoire is composed of the bi-directional relation between listener and speaker behavior

• Naming appears to be a critical developmental skill that results in the capacity to learn in new ways (Greer & Longano, p. 84).

• When language fails to develop, the task of teaching naming lies with educators (Miguel & Petursdottir, 2009)

Conclusion

• …the study of naming should not be taken lightly

• Continued contributions to the research on naming can lead to a better understanding of verbal behavior and the development of new teaching technologies

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