Abstract
There have been many published reports of attempts to teach requests to individuals with severely limited verbal repertoires associated with developmental disabilities. Few of these studies used Skinner’s (1957) term mand to refer to the behavior taught, yet many seemed to be influenced by Skinner’s analysis. We analyzed procedures according to three variables: motivational conditions, supplemental stimulation, and consequences. Individuals with severely limited verbal repertoires provide unique opportunities to study how each of these three variables influence the acquisition of requests. Our analysis indicated that several different procedures were effective in teaching requests, however the degree of supplemental stimulation for the requests varied greatly. Future request teaching programs should consider how each of these three variables influences targeted responses as well as how these variables influence generalization from teaching contexts to nonteaching contexts.
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Preparation of this article was supported by NICHD Grants P01HD18955, R29HD27314, and P30HD02528 to the Schiefelbusch Institute for Life Span Studies, University of Kansas. The authors wish to thank Ed Morris, and reviewers from the EAHB SIG student paper competition, for comments on earlier versions of this paper.
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Brady, N.C., Saunders, K.J. & Spradlin, J.E. A conceptual analysis of request teaching procedures for individuals with severely limited verbal repertoires. Analysis Verbal Behav 12, 43–52 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392896
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03392896