The rehabilitation of verbal operants following acquired brain injury

Abstract

Although verbal deficits are major concerns for individuals following an acquired brain injury (ABI), behavior‐analytic research on language training in neurorehabilitation settings is extremely limited. The purpose of the current study was to systematically replicate the work of Sundberg et al. (1990) in which the authors evaluated the acquisition and functional interdependence of verbal operants for adults following ABI. We used slightly modified procedures (e.g., inclusion of high preference activities, progressive prompt delay) and compared acquisition rates of tacts, mands, and intraverbals with three adult ABI survivors. We also assessed if directly training one verbal operant led to the emergence of untrained, topographically similar verbal operants. Contrary to Sundberg et al., we found mand training was successful for all participants and led to the greatest amount of transfer under tact conditions, and we offer potential explanations for our differing results.

Behavior analysis and aphasia: A current appraisal and suggestions for the future

“…Some behavior analytic work has suggested differences in best practice between brain injury‐specific and other kinds of language training, though this work is minimal and shows some conflicting results (e.g., Sundberg et al., 1990; but see Magat, 2018). Brain injury subpopulations may also present predictably similar differential training needs.…”