Back to Basics II: A Mediational Account of Verbal Relations matters because it changes what a BCBA notices when decisions have to hold up in case conceptualization, intervention design, staff training, and literature-informed problem solving. In Back to Basics II: A Mediational Account of Verbal Relations, for this course, the practical stakes show up in stronger conceptual consistency and better translational decision making, not in abstract discussion alone.
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Join Free →In this presentation, I propose a mediational account of complex verbal relations that appear to be derived or emergent. I argue that just as with matching-to-sample procedures with humans and nonhumans, (verbal) behavior at the moment of reinforcement (i.e., listening, see Schlinger, 2008) is necessary for what some have termed derived relational responding. If so, then derived responding may be an illusion. A mediational account of complex verbal relations has implications for a wide range of verbal phenomena, including verbal remembering and so-called rule-governed behavior. Just as in Back to Basics I, I make the case that verbal behavioral relations can be accounted for in terms of basic behavioral processes without the need for any new terms, concepts, principles, or theories. The resulting analysis is parsimonious in that the only assumptions made are those of the four-term contingency.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
| COA | 1 | — |
Henry D. (Hank) Schlinger Jr. received his Ph.D. in psychology (applied behavior analysis) from Western Michigan University (WMU) under the supervision of Jack Michael. He then completed a two-year National Institutes of Health-funded post-doctoral fellowship in behavioral pharmacology also at WMU with Alan Poling. Dr. Schlinger was a full tenured professor of psychology at Western New England University in Springfield, MA, before moving to Los Angeles in 1998. He is now professor of psychology and current director of the ABA Specialization Option and BCaBA course sequence, and former director of the M. S. Program in Applied Behavior Analysis in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Los Angeles. Dr. Schlinger has published approximately 100 scholarly articles, chapters, commentaries, and book reviews in more than 35 different journals and books. He also has authored or co-authored four books, Psychology: A Behavioral Overview (1990), A Behavior Analytic View of Child Development (1995/2024) (which has been translated into Japanese), Introduction to Scientific Psychology (1998), and, most recently, How to Build Good Behavior and Self-Esteem in Children (2021) (which has been translated into Italian). He is past editor of The Analysis of Verbal Behavior and The Behavior Analyst (now Perspectives on Behavior Science) and sits on the editorial boards of several other journals. He also serves on the Board of Trustees of the Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies and on the Advisory Board of The B. F. Skinner Foundation and The Venus Project (https://www.resourcebasedeconomy.org/advisory-board/). Dr. Schlinger received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the Department of Psychology at Western Michigan University in 2012, and the Jack Michael Award for Outstanding Contributions in Verbal Behavior from the Verbal Behavior Special Interest Group of the Association for Behavior Analysis International in 2015.Hank is also an accomplished song writer and guitarist, whose album, One More Invention, can be found on Spotify. He is also a reviewer of classical music concerts and recordings, and his reviews can be found at Culturespotla.com
Dig into the research behind this topic — plain-English summaries written for BCBAs.
225 research articles with practitioner takeaways
224 research articles with practitioner takeaways
188 research articles with practitioner takeaways
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