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Referent-Based Instruction to Strengthen the Verbal Behavior of Early Learners with Autism and Related Language Disorders

  • Precision Teaching: Discoveries and Applications
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Abstract

The current study evaluated the use of precision teaching to address the verbal behavior deficits of children with autism and other language disorders. From 2013 to 2018, a high-research-activity doctoral university in the south-central United States operated a free clinic that provided applied behavior anlaysis services to early learners in the local community. Participants received referent-based verbal behavior instruction to strengthen their functional language skills by systematically transferring stimulus control across 4 primary verbal operants: mands, echoics, tacts, and sequelics. Referent-based instruction is premised on the notion that proportionate levels of strength among these 4 operants provide the relational flexibility of naturalistic speaking observed in typical language development. This article details the language gains made by 49 participants who received 13 weeks of intervention for 90 min a day, 4 days a week. Relative strengths and weaknesses were identified in the verbal repertoire of each participant, and individualized fluency aims were subsequently developed. Results of pretest and posttest comparisons show that there was a large effect size within the verbal behavior gains of participants who received precision teaching. Implications for implementing referent-based instruction, as well as future areas of research, are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Teachers were instructed to vary their SDs to the extent possible. For example, across 10-min intervals, these fill-in-the-blank frames might change to “T-Rex is a ____,” “All aboard the ____,” and “When I get to the bottom, I go back to the top of the ____,” respectively.

  2. Teachers may have also included the most recent target(s) from the previous NET interval to ensure a sufficient number of stimuli in the probe, with the aim of having more stimuli than the student could respond to within a 1-min timing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Child Study Center, Cook Children’s Health Care System and ANSERS Institute, Texas Christian University, 1300 W. Lancaster Ave., Fort Worth, TX, 76102, USA

    Lee L. Mason

  2. Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, TX, 76102, USA

    Lee L. Mason

  3. University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA

    Alonzo Andrews

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Correspondence to Lee L. Mason.

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The procedures performed involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Institutional Review Board (#2017-181) and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Research Highlights

• Precision teaching is beneficial for measuring relative rates of verbal behavior.

• Selecting aims across learning channels promotes relational flexibility.

• Referent-based instruction facilitates the transfer of stimulus control.

• Speaking fluency is defined in terms of proportionate stimulus control over verbal behavior.

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Mason, L.L., Andrews, A. Referent-Based Instruction to Strengthen the Verbal Behavior of Early Learners with Autism and Related Language Disorders. Behav Analysis Practice 14, 660–672 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40617-020-00491-2

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