Teaching Functional Language Through ABA-VB

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) is an evidence-based method of teaching which uses rewards (i.e. reinforcers) to help teach appropriate behaviors and responses to children.

The ABA therapist breaks down skills into their smallest components, allowing the child to master simple skills. These simple skills are then used as the foundation to build towards more complex skills. Over time, the therapist reduces the amount of reinforcements so that the child no longer needs constant rewards to learn.

Verbal Behavior (VB) is based on the work of a pioneering psychologist, B.F. Skinner, who described the process of learning through the consequences of behavior. Building on this basic foundation of psychology, ABA remains the most researched and scientifically proven autism treatment available.

In ABA-VB, we place an emphasis on Verbal Behavior to ensure that the child with autism truly understands what he has learned. This is in contrast to traditional ABA, which emphasizes on the child performing specific, desired behaviors.

In the traditional approach used by most other therapists, if he can name and point to a cookie, the therapist will assume that he has already understood what is a cookie. That is not good enough for us. We also require the child to:

Ask for a cookie when it is wanted (mand)
Find the cookie when it is asked for (receptive)
Select a cookie if asked:
What do you eat? (function)
What has chocolate chips? (feature)
Find the food (class)

Answer questions about the cookie when it is not present: (intraverbals)
Tell me what you eat.
What has chocolate chips?
What’s crunchy?

	ABA-VB	Traditional ABA

Language acquisition	Faster language acquisition through early emphasis on functional language. By teaching language for obtaining reinforcers (i.e. mands), this approach encourages faster language acquisition; the child would learn that using language is valuable for obtaining their favorite items or activities.	Language training is more limited. Children are taught receptive (comprehension) and expressive language.

Reinforcement & Motivation	Ongoing emphasis on capturing motivation. We recognize that a child’s desire for certain items or activities change over time. A simple example would be a child losing interest in obtaining cookies once they are full. Thus, constant monitoring is required to sustain child’s motivation for learning.	Insensitive to changes in child’s motivation to obtain a particular reinforcer.

Mode of instructional delivery	Natural environment teaching Varied instructions Natural modes of teaching are utilized so that children would find it easier to respond in different situations.	Distraction-free environment Short & rigid instructions

Teaching procedures	Discrete trial & natural environment teaching Interspersed trials Fluency training Error-less mode of teaching Correction procedures	Intensive, discrete trial teaching No-no-prompt sequence Model-prompt-switch-repeat

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