Verbal behavior at a procedural level in the chimpanzee.

The paper looks at chimpanzee language projects. It asks, 'Can Skinner’s verbal operants explain what the apes are doing?'

The author says yes. Mands, tacts, and intraverbals can describe the chimps’ sign use without talking about 'words in the head.'

No new data are shown. The paper gives a step-by-step way to record ape signs as behavior-environment relations.

It claims the same procedures we use with kids work for chimps. Reinforcement, prompting, and shaping are enough.

Freeman et al. (2015) took the same seven operants and turned them into PEAK lessons for children with autism. The 1984 idea moved from lab apes to clinic kids.

Rudy Zaltzman et al. (2022) tested the taxonomy in a single-case study. One child learned new tacts just by watching. The ape paper said it could work; they showed it.

Becker et al. (2022) stretch the lens further. They want Skinner’s terms used with stroke patients who have aphasia. Same framework, new species, new injury.

You can treat any symbolic response as an operant. Look at what came before and what followed. If a chimp’s sign, a toddler’s word, or an adult’s gesture is strengthened by reinforcement, it is verbal behavior. Use this lens when your data look messy. Drop the mental labels and plot the ABCs.