Written by leading experts in language and cognition, this groundbreaking behavior analysis textbook brings the study of verbal behavior into the 21st century with cutting-edge research. Students and clinicians in the burgeoning field of applied behavior analysis will find the theoretical foundation they need to effectively help the increasingly diverse clients seeking their services. The origins of behavior analysis can be traced to the pioneering work of B.F. Skinner. Skinner’s fundamental insights into how human behavior is shaped, maintained, and can be changed were powerful and far-reaching. Some of Skinner’s most innovative contributions were in the study of language. Behavior analytic work in the area of language and cognition did not stop with Skinner, however. Indeed, Skinner’s work in this area has inspired considerable expansion, particularly with an eye toward more sophisticated verbal and cognitive repertoires. This important volume provides an overview of the concepts and core behavioral processes involved in language and cognition. You’ll find a deeper exploration of complex linguistic and cognitive skills, including generative responding, learning by observation, and perspective taking. Also included are clinically supported interventions based in mindfulness, psychological flexibility, and emotion regulation to help clients improve complex language, social, and academic skills. The future of behavior analysis is here. With its focus on the importance of language and cognition, this textbook is a must-read for anyone studying or practicing in the science of behavior.

Sixteen leading American and Japanese scholars in the field of behavior analysis present work on BA as it relates to language and cognition.

Sixteen leading American and Japanese scholars in the field of behavior analysis present work on BA as it relates to language and cognition.

Copublished with Context Press Derived Relational Responding offers a series of revolutionary intervention programs for applied work in human language and cognition targeted at students with autism and other developmental disabilities. It presents a program drawn from derived stimulus relations that you can use to help students of all ages acquire foundational and advanced verbal, social, and cognitive skills. The first part of Derived Relational Responding provides step-by-step instructions for helping students learn relationally, acquire rudimentary verbal operants, and develop other basic language skills. In the second section of this book, you'll find ways to enhance students' receptive and expressive repertoires by developing their ability to read, spell, construct sentences, and use grammar. Finally, you'll find out how to teach students to apply the skills they've learned to higher order cognitive and social functions, including perspective-taking, empathy, mathematical reasoning, intelligence, and creativity. This applied behavior analytic training approach will help students make many substantial and lasting gains in language and cognition not possible with traditional interventions.

Verbal Behavior Analysis describes newly identified tools to provide verbal capabilities to children who have language delays or who lack language. This book assists teachers and parents in their efforts to help children produce novel and spontaneous verbal functions, acquire language incidentally, and become socially verbal. This book responds to the large demand for effective language development tools for children with no language and severe language delays related to autism and other disabilities by providing practitioners with the means to advance verbal development. Step-by-step protocols describe how to move children from pre-listeners to listeners, non-speakers to speakers, speakers to readers and writers, and from non-social to socially verbal individuals. The procedures are derived from numerous experiments and applications with children in three countries, and are based on Skinner's (1957) theory of language function and on research findings that extended the theory to verbal development. The authors synthesize research published across several different journals, including many new findings, in ways that provide readers with the current state of the science of verbal behavior and its application to children with real needs. While the book emphasizes the vocal production of speech, the procedures are applicable to all forms of language (signs, pictures, voice-generating devices). The book includes an extensive glossary of terms from behavior analysis and verbal behavior analysis. The instructor's manual provides a course outline, quizzes, and protocols for training professionals to use the procedures with fidelity in applied settings. If you are a professor accustomed to receiving review copies, we regret that due to the limited number of appropriate courses we are unable to provide review copies of this title.