Effects of social reinforcement on the emission of tacts by preschoolers.

Abstract

We conducted 2 experiments on the effects of social attention versus token contingencies on the emission of verbal operants by preschoolers, with and without a disability diagnosis. Four participants, 3 females and 1 male, 3 to 4 years old, were selected to participate in Experiment 1 and 6 participants, 5 females and 1 male, 2 to 4 years old, in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 compared effects of the 2 contingencies on numbers of child-initiated tacts in 3 different settings using an alternating treatment design. Experiment 2, using a multielement design, compared the automated delivery of tokens versus adult attention on the percentage of peer-to-peer and adult conversational units. Participants in both experiments initiated more tacts with contingent social attention than with contingent tokens. Implications are that tacts and conversational units are maintained more by social reinforcers than nonsocial generalized conditioned reinforcers (i.e., tokens). Social control of tacts may be essential to social verbal behavior.

Verbal Development, Behavioral Metamorphosis, and the Evolution of Language

“…Each role is reinforced by the behaviors of the other role. This interaction has been identified as a conversational unit between individuals also in several studies and is likely the predecessor to the speaker-withinthe-skin episodes (Donley & Greer, 1993;Eby & Greer, 2017;Schmelzkopf et al, 2017). This interaction constitutes bidirectional operants between individuals whereas the child's self-talk, as described above, is a bidirectional operant within the child's own skin, where each role interacts with the other.…”

“…The cusps resulting from the learning of social reinforcers are pivotal. Several studies show (a) the critical role of social reinforcement and (b) interventions that can establish social reinforcement (Eby & Greer, 2017;Lawson & Walsh, 2007;Schmelzkopf et al, 2017). Current evidence suggests how particular experiences make it possible for children to learn language incidentally from a developmental trajectory that leads to the joining of what is initially developmentally independent listener and speaker behavior.…”

“…One might say that the adult behavior is now an automatic reinforcer. However, in this case, the term automatic is not tautological, because the change in the stimulus control was empirically demonstrated (see Schmelzkopf et al, 2017, andEby &, for the evidence related to adult attention). Examples of the methodology and evidence for the relation between the establishment of conditioned reinforcers as cusps can be found in Du, Broto, and Greer (2015), Greer, Pistoljevic, Cahill, & Du (2011), , Greer, Singer-Dudek, Longano, & Zrinzo (2008), Longano and Greer (2014), Pereira-Delgado, Goswami (2009), andSchmelzkopf et al (2017).…”

Blocking of Stimulus Control in Children with Autism

“…Such blocking of conditioned reinforcers may become a significant problem for children with autism, because without a range of effective social conditioned reinforcers, social skills and other complex skills are not likely to develop (e.g., Du, Broto, & Greer, 2015;Eby & Greer, 2017;Ferster, 1961;Lepper & Petursdottir, 2017;Lugo, Mathews, King, Lamphere, & Damme, 2017;Schmelzkopf, Greer, Singer-Dudek, & Du, 2017). Therefore, the identification of obstacles for the successful establishment of commonly effective social reinforcers may be fundamental to the learning of important skills by children with autism (Dozier, Iwata, Thomason-Sassi, Worsdell, & Wilson, 2012;Eby & Greer, 2017;Lovaas et al, 1966;Rodriguez & Gutierrez, 2017), including tacts (Eby & Greer, 2017), joint attention (Isaksen & Holth, 2009;Jones & Carr, 2004) and complex verbal behavior, such as bidirectional naming . In future research with children with autism, a possible blocking of standard social consequences as conditioned reinforcers should be investigated.…”

Autism and other child developmental disorders: Early behavior-analytic interventions.

“…The issue begins with the work of Neimy, Pelaez, Carrow, Monlux, and Tarbox (2017), which identified the early markers of infants and children at risk of developing autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other developmental disorders, and reviewed studies that used operant conditioning to shape critical social skills that are typically missing in these children. It continues with Eby and Greer’s (2017) report of two experiments on the effects of social attention versus token contingencies on the emission of verbal operants by preschoolers, with and without disability diagnoses, as well as Schmelzkopf, Greer, Singer-Dudek, and Du’s (2017) research on two experiments examining the effects of establishing conditioned reinforcers for adult attention on the initiation and continuation of vocal verbal operants by 3- and 4-year-olds. Next, Olaff, Ona, and Holth (2017) examined the establishment of naming in children with autism through multiple response-exemplar procedures that expanded on previous findings.…”