Nonverbal behavior correlated with the shaped verbal behavior of children.
Kids can learn to run their own work pace by saying how fast they are going—if they already have the words and those words pay off.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers worked with three children who had no diagnosis. They used hand puppets to make the session fun.
The kids pressed a lever for nickels under two schedules: RR (every 5 presses) and RI (first press after 5 s). While the child worked, the puppet asked, "How fast are you pressing?" The adult then praised or corrected the child’s answer and gave a nickel for a "good" statement.
What they found
Sometimes the child’s answer matched the real rate, and the rate itself then moved toward that answer. The effect showed up only when the child already had the right words ("fast," "slow") and when those words had earned coins before.
How this fits with other research
Davison et al. (1989) got the same shaping process with rats pressing for food pellets. Computer or puppet, the rule is the same: reinforced words or steps drift toward the target.
Horner-Johnson et al. (2002) also tied response rate to problem behavior, but they matched teacher pace to the child’s free-operant rate. Mace et al. (1990) flip that idea: let the child’s own words set the rate.
Bao et al. (2017) show that most autism studies teach mand or intraverbal skills. Mace et al. (1990) remind us that typical kids can also learn when their own verbal labels control their actions.
Why it matters
If a client can already tact "fast" or "slow," you can shape those statements to nudge the actual response rate. Start by making the words pay off with praise or tokens, then use the child’s answers as a cheap, built-in pace setter. No extra equipment needed—just your voice and a reinforcer.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Children under 6 years old pressed on response windows behind which stimuli appeared (star or tree). Presses occasionally lit lamps arranged in a column; a present was delivered when all lamps were lit. A random-ratio schedule in the presence of star alternated with a random-interval schedule in the presence of tree. These contingencies usually did not produce respective high and low response rates in the presence of star and tree, but the shaping of verbal behavior (e.g., "press a lot without stopping" or "press and wait") was sometimes accompanied by corresponding changes in response rate. Verbal shaping was accomplished between schedule components during verbal interactions between the child and a hand-puppet, Garfield the Cat, and used social consequences such as enthusiastic reactions to what the child had said as well as concrete consequences such as delivery of extra presents. Variables that may constrain the shaping of verbal behavior in children seem to include the vocabulary available to the child and the functional properties of that vocabulary; the correlation between rates of pressing and what the child says about them may depend upon such variables.
The Analysis of verbal behavior, 1990 · doi:10.1007/BF03392846