The Application of Relational Frame Theory to Teaching Early Piano Skills to Children on the Autism Spectrum.

Unlabelled: Music is a unique form of verbal stimuli (Reynolds & Hayes, , (3), 413-421, 2017) and the literature has indicated some success in using procedures involving the frame of coordination or stimulus equivalence to teach early piano skills to learners with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD; Hill et al., , (1), 188-208, 2020). However, these studies only targeted narrow skills rather than a complete repertoire.

Why We Are Not Acting to Save Ourselves: ACT, Health, and Culture.

Chronic health conditions are increasing at an alarming rate worldwide, and many could be prevented if people were to engage in specific lifestyle behaviors. Intervening on lifestyle behaviors is challenging due to the fact that the consequences associated with unhealthy behaviors are temporally distant and probabilistic, and the aversive functions of covert stimuli may interfere with people's engagement in healthy, preventative behaviors. This article explores the role of relational framing in the promotion of healthy lifestyle behaviors and summarizes research supporting the use of acceptance and commitment training (ACT) as a framework for prevention and intervention.

Correction to: The Beethoven Revolution: A Case Study in Selection by Consequence.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1007/s40614-020-00271-x.].

The Beethoven Revolution: A Case Study in Selection by Consequence.

Music as a pervasive cultural practice serves many functions for a community, and its selection is determined by the interaction between multiple contingencies at individual, group, and society levels. An analysis was recently conducted on the dynamic interaction between contingencies in frescoes art that promoted the Mexican Muralist movement (Malott, 2019, 2020). Following this example, we provide a selectionist account of the music of Ludwig van Beethoven in the 250 anniversary of his birth.

Music as a Cultural Inheritance System: A Contextual-Behavioral Model of Symbolism, Meaning, and the Value of Music.

Music is a pervasive cultural practice that has been present in ancient civilizations through to the present, yet its evolutionary significance has not been unequivocally determined. One position suggests that evolution favored music-related behaviors because such behaviors were linked to sexual selection and reproduction. A more recent perspective that is consistent with today's evolutionary science framework suggests that music is a cultural-level adaptation because of the survival advantages it affords members of a community.

"In" or "Out"? An Analysis of the Use of Augmentals in U.S. Presidential Speeches on the Paris Climate Agreement.

Augmentals, as a type of verbal rule, have been used in political speeches either for establishing beneficial cultural values for the populace (Leigland, 2005) or for publicizing political points of view to exert control on public opinion through propaganda (Rakos, 1993). The current study conducted a functional content analysis on two presidential speeches about climate change and global warming regarding whether the United States should enter or exit the Paris Climate Agreement. The purposes of the study were to (a) examine the effects of two types of augmentals (reinforcer-establishing augmentals and punisher-establishing augmentals) on behavior change in the populace, (b) explore the effects of the types of relational frames that formed augmentals, and (c) provide guidance to the public on discriminating propaganda in media sources.

Towards a Modern-Day Teaching Machine: The Synthesis of Programmed Instruction and Online Education.

The 21st century has seen rapid enrollment in online courses and environmental and biological determinates, such as COVID-19, that challenge how universities respond to education. However, this "new way of doing things" has empirical support from the past. Skinner (1968) laid out a science of teaching derived from operant conditioning principles and provided methods for adopting programmed instruction into what he termed a "teaching machine.

Lessons from a Female Academician: Some Further Reflections on a Glass Ceiling.

Much discussion has occurred in recent years regarding the participation of women in behavior analysis. The purpose of this article is to share lessons learned as a female academician and impart helpful information to other, newer female university faculty members.

Why We Are Still Not Acting to Save the World: the Upward Challenge of a Post-Skinnerian Behavior Science.

Basic research on derived stimulus relations reveals many effects that may be useful in understanding and resolving significant and complex societal problems. Applied research on derived stimulus relations has done little to fulfill this promise, focusing instead mainly on simple demonstrations of well-known phenomena. We trace the research tradition of derived stimulus relations from laboratory to wide-scale implementation, and put forward several suggestions for how to progress effective and impactful research on derived relational responding to issues of immense social importance.

An Investigation of the Efficacy of Asynchronous Discussion on Students' Performance in an Online Research Method Course.

Online instruction has become increasingly a commonplace in higher education, broadly and within the field of behavior analysis. Given the increased availability of online instruction, it is important to establish how learning outcomes are influenced by various teaching methods, in order to effectively train the next generation of behavior analysts. This study used a between-group design to evaluate the use of asynchronous online class discussion.

Selection-Based Instruction with Touch-Screen Video and the Emergence of Exact, Recombinative, and Novel Topography-Based Responses to Interview Questions.

The purpose of the present experiment was to replicate and extend the literature on using selection-based instruction to teach responses to interview questions by (a) evaluating the emergence of recombinative (i.e., combinations of taught) and novel (i.

Beginning the Dialogue on the e-Transformation: Behavior Analysis' First Massive Open Online Course (MOOC).

The e-Transformation in higher education, in which Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are playing a pivotal role, has had an impact on the modality in which behavior analysis is taught. In this paper, we survey the history and implications of online education including MOOCs and describe the implementation and results for the discipline's first MOOC, delivered at Southern Illinois University in spring 2015. Implications for the globalization and free access of higher education are discussed, as well as the parallel between MOOCs and Skinner's teaching machines.

Learning Skinner's Verbal Operants: Comparing an Online Stimulus Equivalence Procedure to an Assigned Reading.

The purpose of the present study was to compare the effects of an online stimulus equivalence procedure to that of an assigned reading when learning Skinner's taxonomy of verbal behavior. Twenty-six graduate students participated via an online learning management system. One group was exposed to an online stimulus equivalence procedure (equivalence group) that was designed to teach relations among the names, antecedents, consequences, and examples of each elementary verbal operant.

The Effects of Auditory Tact and Auditory Imagining Instructions on the Emergence of Novel Intraverbals.

The current research investigated whether intraverbals would emerge following auditory tact instruction. Participants were first taught to tact auditory stimuli by providing the name of the item or animal that produces the sound (e.g.

An Evaluation of Instruction in Visual Imagining on the Written Spelling Performance of Adolescents with Learning Disabilities.

Recent research has evaluated the utility of teaching potentially covert strategies to mediate overt performance. As an extension of this developing literature, the current study used a multiple-probe design to evaluate the effects of instructing in a visual imagining strategy on correct written spelling responses with three adolescents with various learning disabilities. After the participants were presented with the textual target stimuli, they were instructed to imagine the word in their head before writing it down.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of the Stimulus Pairing Observation Procedure and Multiple Exemplar Instruction on Tact and Listener Responses in Children with Autism.

The stimulus pairing observation procedure (SPOP) combined with multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) has been shown to be effective with typically developing preschoolers in establishing the joint stimulus control required for the development of naming. The purpose of the current investigation was to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the SPOP in establishing speaker and listener responses in children with autism. Participants were presented with pairings of auditory and visual stimuli during instruction.

Implementing the Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP): Teaching Assessment Techniques.

The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (VB-MAPP) is an assessment tool used with individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder and other language delays (Sundberg 2008). The milestones assessment section of the VB-MAPP is used to determine an individual's current skill level. The results of the milestones assessment can be used to identify instructional goals and objectives.

Effects of dictation-taking and match-to-sample training on listing and spelling responses in adults with intellectual disabilities.

Several studies have demonstrated that conditions can be arranged to promote increases in a nontargeted verbal operant following instruction of another verbal operant. In the current study, we used a multiple baseline design to evaluate the effects of 2 instructional protocols on nontargeted verbal repertoires (listing of synonyms and vocal spelling of these synonyms) in adults with intellectual disabilities. In Experiment 1, participants were instructed in taking dictation and were tested for the vocal spelling of the words taught during instruction.

Emergent intraverbal responses via tact and match-to-sample instruction.

The present investigation evaluated the effectiveness of category tact and match-to-sample instruction in facilitating the emergence of intraverbal responses (i.e., naming several items belonging to a specific category) for 2 children with autism.

An evaluation of the stimulus equivalence paradigm to teach single-subject design to distance education students via Blackboard.

The purpose of the current study was to examine the degree to which instruction based on stimulus equivalence procedures could be used to teach single-subject design methodology to graduate-level professionals through a Web-based course management system known as Blackboard (see http://www.blackboard.com).

Examining the utility of the stimulus pairing observation procedure with preschool children learning a second language.

We evaluated the effectiveness of a stimulus pairing observation procedure to facilitate tact and listener relations in preschool children learning a second language. This procedure resulted in the establishment of most listener relations as well as some tact relations. Multiple-exemplar training resulted in the establishment of most of the remaining relations.