Research on verbal operants from the Laboratory of Verbal Operants Studies (LEOV) presents an eighteen-year empirical program examining a dimension of verbal behavior that clinical ABA has historically underemphasized: the autoclitic as a persuasive antecedent condition. Rather than studying autoclitics purely as grammatical qualifiers of speaker output, this research investigates how autoclitic verbal stimuli presented as antecedents alter the probability of subsequent nonverbal responses in listeners.
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Join Free →The presentation will show that the verbal operant "autoclitic", when presented as an antecedent condition of a response, may have persuasive effects upon it, altering the function of the verbal stimuli that accompanies them. The empirical base are eleven experiments, conducted at the Laboratory of Verbal Operants Studies (LEOV), under Prof Hübner's coordination. A-B-A or Pre-Post Test designs are applied mainly. The participants were typical developing children and young university students. The procedures always involved a baseline, where the frequency of a non-verbal response was observed. In experimental phases, one or more verbal manipulations were conducted, involving verbal antecedent stimuli with the autoclitic topography suggested by Skinner (1957), where one or more verbal responses, previously observed at baseline, were differentially reinforced. After this, post-test measures were taken under similar conditions of those at baseline, verifying the reversion or not of the responsess observed during baseline. The results in the majority of the studies indicated that the effects of the autoclitic verbal stimuli upon the non-verbal behavior were, in general, transient, more easily observed in children than in adults and with lower response cost. Other parameters manipulated, such as the locus of the emission of verbal stimuli (the experimenter or the participant), the process that originated the emission of the autoclitic response (if instructed or shaped), if related to the announcement of positive or negative reinforcement did not show a great relevance. Under conditions where the emission of shaped autoclitic verbal stimuli did not show changes in the related nonverbal response, instructions announcing generalized reinforcers contingent upon the emission of planned response were effective. It was interpreted that the autoclitic is one more dimension of stimulus control, coherent with Schlinger's analysis (1993) that says that, under certain conditions, it is an altering function stimulus.
| Certification Body | Credits | Type |
|---|---|---|
| BACB® | 1 | General |
Martha Hübner is a full professor of experimental psychology at the Institute of Psychology, University of São Paulo (USP), Brazil. She was coordinator of the graduate program in the experimental department from 2004 to 2010. She is former president of the Brazilian Association of Psychology (2002 to 2005), of the Brazilian Association of Behavioral Medicine and Psychology (2008 to 2011), and of ABAI (2015 to 2017). She also served as ABAI’s international representative (2009 to 2014). She conducts research at the Institute for Science and Technology on learning and at the Laboratory for the Study of Verbal Operants on processes involved in the acquisition of symbolic behaviors such as reading, writing and verbal operants. She is currently chair of the psychology section at the university hospital; she is immersed in three areas of research, teaching, and application: empirical relations between verbal and nonverbal behavior, control by minimal units in reading, and verbal behavior programs for children with autism spectrum disorders.
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