Aspectos socioeconómicos Región económica

The autoclitic has several functions; it may specify, locate, quantify, qualify,

negate/affirm, or indicate possession for both tact and mand functions. For mands, the

autoclitic functions to gain a specific reinforcer (e.g., big, chocolate, that/this/the,

no/yes, and my/your cookie). For tacts, the autoclitic, which is emitted within an

adjective-object pair, functions to gain generalized reinforcement (i.e., a grade, mark,

128 C H A P T E R 4

Basic Teaching Operations for Early Speaker Functions

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or token) and often, but not always, social reinforcement (i.e., praise). For example, when a tact such as that bird, this bird, a bird, flying bird is emitted, a listener may respond by saying, "Yes, that's right," or "I see the one you mean," and give a smile, thumbs up, or other form of attention, which functions to reinforce the autoclitic tact. To teach the autoclitic function, students must learn to emit accurate tacts that discriminate the different functions of each autoclitic (i.e., big/small, more/less, red/blue, this, that, on, under, and beside), and they must learn that by doing so, they avoid the withdrawal of reinforcers. In other words, for the speaker the autoclitic should function to increase the likelihood of generalized reinforcement and the possi- bility of avoiding punishment from a listener or audience. Thus, social attention and other generalized reinforcers (e.g., tokens as correct response indicators) must be rein- forcers for the tact response.

After students achieve the generalized criterion for a mand or tact form, use the echoic-to-mand and echoic-to-tact teaching procedures described earlier to expand their autoclitic speaker repertoires. For mand responses, add phrases such as "I want the (mand item), please" or "May I have the (mand item), please?" For tact responses, add phrases such as "That is the number (tact)," "That is the color (tact)," or "This is the number (tact)." Students may use the phrases interchangeably or emit variations such as "That is the big (little, ugly, messy) " as long as the basic autoclitic of spec- ification is present. Also, reinforce variations in responding that are appropriate to the setting (e.g., no foul or aggressive language).

Teach a target response until students achieve a criterion for autoclitics ("Please" and "I want a " with mands; "This is a , That is a , or Good for tacts). Subsequently, as they achieve mand or tact criteria for a new item, the item should then be taught with the qualifying autoclitic. Thereafter, teach a new function by shifting the autoclitics. For example, when the student has learned "Cookie, please" as a mand, use "Good (tact)" or "That is a (tact)" when they are taught cookie in a tact function. Thereafter, the form that the student uses determines the teacher's response. That is, when the student adds "please," the function is that of a mand, and the form is always to be consequated as such. Similarly, the use of "This (that) is a " or "Good " results in a generalized reinforcer such as praise and an opportunity to mand. A data based procedure for doing this is described later (Nuzzolo-Gomez & Greer, 2004).

Students may confuse autoclitic mands and tacts by saying, "(stimulus), please" or "Can I have juice, please?" for tacts. When this occurs, the student has not learned the autoclitic function. Do not provide reinforcement for the corrected response, but rather present 3 echoics to correct, as just described so that the student will learn the different adjective-object pair functions. Initially, the autoclitic functions for mands and tacts need to be directly taught. Emitting a mand for the big cookie is a response that is independent of using the adjective big in a tact function. For example, after the child learns to specify the big cookie in a mand function, they cannot typically use big to tact the big crayon. While these two usages are independent, we want to teach our students the different adjective-object pair functions for the same "word" or form as described earlier in this chapter.

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Pure tacts and mands can continue to be taught to children who use verbal behavior infrequently. However, once children acquire a basic repertoire of mands and tacts quickly, they should be introduced to multiple control (intraverbal) training immediately. Once students can make their needs known (e.g., mand) to critical listen- ers in the environment or gain attention/instruction through comments on their envi- ronment (tact), they should be introduced to other repertoires of verbal behavior. Expand the tacts and expand the autoclitic functions as described next. Once the child has several mands and tacts with different autoclitic functions, you will need to deter- mine if the mand and tact forms are independent. W h e n they are independent, the child learns a mand but cannot use the same form in a tact function, or vice versa (Twyman, 1996b; see Research Box 4.2). If they are independent, you will need to use the transformation of establishing operations procedure described later in this chapter.

For all of the advanced tact capabilities described hereafter, incorporate adjec- tive-object pair functions. If we use the transformation of establishing operation pro- tocol (described subsequently), students have all of the components they need to emit autoclitics during tact instruction. Autoclitics might include this is, that is, the stimulus is in/on/under, that (stimulus) there, the (stimulus) here, among others. Teach existing tacts (i.e., colors and shapes) as autoclitics with a tact function, since autoclitics must have a specific function relative to mands and tacts. While autoclitics are often called adjec- tives, prepositions, or adverbs from a linguistic perspective, it is the function that determines whether the words/gestures/signs/pictures are actually joined adjective- object pairs that function as tacts. The word big gets the big cookie, or "that is a ," results in generalized reinforcement—inaccuracies are not reinforced. If the child is to use "please," then simply saying," cookie" does not result in receiving the cookie.

R E S E A R C H B O X 4.2

Functional Independence of Mands