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Naming and Verbal Behavior
Caio Miguel, Ph.D., BCBA-D
California State University,
Sacramento
Naming
• What is naming?
• How is naming developed?
• The importance of naming
• Teaching naming
• Using naming to produce novel behavior
• Speaker engages in
behavior that affects
the behavior of
others
• Listener is affected
by the behavior of
the speaker
“Can I
have
some
water?”
receives
water
“Thank
you”
“Can I
have
some
water?”
gets
water
“Thank
you”
Verbal Behavior
• The behavior of an individual that has been reinforced
through the mediation of another person’s behavior
(the listener).
• Applies to written behavior, signs, gestures, and picture
exchange
• Listener must have learned to respond in order to
reinforce the behavior of the speaker.
• We all play the roles of speaker and listener at the
same time
• We can react as a listener to our own verbal behavior
• Understand how environmental variables affect verbal
behavior
Mand
• VB under the influence of the speaker’s motivation. The
consequence for the mand is specific.
• “Water” when water deprived.
• “I want a cappuccino” when tired/caffeine
• “It is hot here” when wanting to cool off.
• “Would you mind taking the garbage out?”
• “You look beautiful today...can I borrow some money?
Tact
• VB in which form of the behavior is influenced by an
immediately prior nonverbal stimulus (an object,
action, of property). The consequence for the tact is
non-specific.
• “Water” when seeing a bottle of water.
• “I feel thirsty” when describing a private event.
• “Look at his purple tie !” when seeing one.
• “Thank you”
Intraverbal
• VB occasioned by what someone says, signs or writes.
No point-to-point correspondence between stimulus
and response.
• Saying “vehicle” as a result of hearing “car”
• Saying “Caio”as a result of hearing “what’s your name?”
• Saying “drive”as a result of hearing “what do you do with a
car?”
Duplic and Codic
• Duplic: Echoic and copying a text.
• Codic: Textual, taking dictation.
Michael, 1982
Echoic
• When the verbal behavior produces similar sound
patters as the verbal antecedent stimulus (what was
heard).
• “Water” when hearing “Water”
Textual & Taking Dictation
• Reading aloud
• Writing what is heard
Naming
• Horne and Lowe (1996) emphasized the importance of
the individual serving as a speaker and listener within the
same skin.
• Informed by other accounts of language development
(Vygotzky and Mead)
• Informed by research on language development
Listener
• Children learn to listen before they learn to speak
• Learn to discriminate caregiver’s speech sounds
• Caregiver names objects
(Richelle, 1993)
• Speak slowly, use accentuated single names in simplified syntax,
repeat them many times (Snow, 1977)
Listener
• Caregiver notes what children are looking at (or playing
with) before they talk about it
(Masur, 1982)
• Caregiver indicates the object that he/she names
(joint
attention)
• Child learns to follow a point and then point to the object
herself, which serves as a cue for the caregiver’s naming
of the object (Foster, 1979). Child also picks up or shows
objects to caregiver
Listener
• Caregiver models and reinforces conventional behavior
(Kaye, 1982).
• Note importance of generalized imitation
• Extension of listener behavior to other exemplars and with
the frame:
• “Where’s the __?”
Listener Behavior
Horne & Lowe, 1996
Echoic Relation
• Children imitate the speech of caregivers (9 to 13 months
old; Poulson, Kymissis, Reeve, Andreatos, & Reeve, 1991)
• When the caregiver names an object the child can not
only engage in listener, but also echoic behavior
• Echoics may also occur at the covert level
• This is when the child becomes speaker-listener to her
own verbal behavior
• Listens to herself (verbal thinking?)
Listener:Echoic
Horne & Lowe, 1996
Tact Relation
• Caregiver’s vocalization occasions the child’s echoic
response in the presence of the object
• Caregiver provides reinforcement for the child’s echoic
behavior
• Over time, the object itself influences the child’s vocal
response (tact)
Naming
• Tacts emerge from the interaction between echoics and
listener behavior.
• This may explain why there’s almost never a tact without listener
behavior (Whynn & Smith, 2003).
• When a child tacts an object, a verbal stimulus is
generated which in turn may evoke listener behavior
• At this point we say the child can name the object
Listener : Echoic : Tact
Horne & Lowe, 1996
Naming
Horne & Lowe, 1996
Naming
• Naming involves a bi-directional relation between the
spoken word and a particular stimulus
• Naming is said to exist when the reinforcement of a
listener relation is accompanied by the emergence of a
speaker relation and vice-versa (Horne & Lowe, 1996; Miguel &
Petursdottir, 2009)
Importance of Naming
• Naming makes it possible for children to learn language
incidentally (Greer & Longano, 2010)
• Children with disabilities without naming would have to be
taught every verbal function separately
• They may not be able to learn from experience
Importance of Naming
• Foundational skill in learning to read and write
Longano, 2010).
• The child will hear herself and “recognize” the word
(Greer &
Comprehension
“Fireman”
Fi re man
/Fireman/
Importance of Naming
• Children who lack naming have :
• Poor comprehension (Helou-Care, 2008)
• May not able to spell or take dictation (Greer, Yuan, & Gautreaux, 2005)
Importance of Naming
• Naming may lead to the acquisition of intraverbal behavior
(Horne & Lowe, 1996)
• Naming may lead to the acquisition of mands
1996)
(Horne & Lowe,
Importance of Naming
• Naming is central in understanding “meaning”
• When we name an object we recognize it (Mead, 1934)
• We react to it as a member of a class or category (e.g., “cake”)
• So naming is symbolic behavior (Horne & Lowe, 1996)
Importance of Naming
• Naming leads to stimulus categorization
(Miguel & Petursdottir,
2009)
• When objects produce the same name, they acquire the same
meaning
• If dissimilar objects are called “toys,” then children will sort them
accordingly
Tact
Listener
Where’s the
“CAT?”
SR+
Echoic
“CAT?”
Teaching Naming
• Assess pre-requisite skills
• Generalized echoic repertoire
• Basic tacts and listener relations involving same stimuli
• Instructional control
• Tact Training
• Train at least three targets to mastery
• Listener Test
• Test the three mastered targets on a receptive discrimination task
• Train and probe
• Continue training tacts and testing for receptive discrimination
Teaching Naming
• If the child does not respond as a listener following tact
training, train the listener relation directly, then go to train
another tact and probe the listener
• MEI utilizing task interspersal can also be used
MEI
Greer et al.,
2007
Verbal Modules
• Instructor: “Touch the car”
• Student: Touches the picture of the car (receptive)
• Instructor: “What is it?”
• Student: “Car”
• Instructor: “Say ball”
• Student: “ball”
• Instructor: holds up a picture of a ball, and says “what is
it?”
• Student: “ball”
Naming and Categorization
• When objects produce the same name, they acquire the
same meaning
• Individuals react similarly to stimuli that produce the same
name; these stimuli become members of the same class,
or category
“Animal”
”Animal”
”Animal”
”Animal”
“Animal”
“Animal”
Naming and Categorization
• Categorization (sorting objects or pictures by category)
seems to develop with no direct training when typicallydeveloping children learn to name (Horne, Lowe, & Harris, 2007;
Horne, Lowe, Harris & Randle, 2004; Lowe, Horne, & Randle, 2002; Lowe, Horne, &
Hughes, 2005; Mahoney, Miguel, Ahearn, & Bell, 2010; Miguel, Petursdottir, Carr, &
Michael, 2008)
Categorization
• Assess whether participants would show derived
categorization and listener skills after learning to tact
pictures with common names.
• Two children diagnosed with autism, Donald (6 years) and
Jonathan (5 years) participated.
• Generalized identity matching.
Categorization
• Categorizations: Percentage of correct responses in a 3-
choice visual-visual matching-to-sample (MTS) task
• Listener Behavior: Percentage of correct responses in a
3-choice auditory-visual MTS task
Categorization
• A non-concurrent multiple baseline design across
participants
• Experimental conditions: Pretraining, categorization tests,
listener tests, tact training, categorization posttests and
listener posttests.
Categorization
• Speaker training alone can produce novel categorization.
• There was a clear transfer from speaker to listener
behavior (i.e., naming) and both categorized successfully.
• Initial support for clinical recommendations (Miguel &
Petursdottir, 2008).
In press, Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders
A further evaluation of the effects of listener training on
derived categorization and speaker behavior in children
with autism
Greg P. Lee, Caio F. Miguel, Emily K. Darcey, Adrienne M. Jennings
California State University, Sacramento
“Work dog”
(Speaker)
/work dog/
(Listener)
Applied Implications
• Categorizing and classifying objects and events in our
environment is an important skill
• it is a way to relate to objects and events in our environment,
especially novel ones
• Clinicians may be able to produce novel categorization via
either speaker or listener training
• Results seemed dependent upon a well-established
naming repertoire (Greer et al., 2007)
Teaching Categorization
• Simple tact training
• Multiple-tact training
• “What is this? ____” “right, this is a ___ and?”
• Category test
• Sorting or MTS
• Troubleshoot?
Conclusion
• The naming repertoire is composed of the bi-directional
relation between listener and speaker behavior
• Naming appears to be a critical developmental skill that
results in the capacity to learn in new ways
(Greer & Longano, p.
84).
• When language fails to develop, the task of teaching
naming lies with educators (Miguel & Petursdottir, 2009)
Conclusion
• …the study of naming should not be taken lightly
• Continued contributions to the research on naming can
lead to a better understanding of verbal behavior and the
development of new teaching technologies