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In all levels of education, teachers’ abilities to deal with complex classroom situations in split-seconds concerns pedagogical tact, a crucial quality which relies, in part, on intuition. Developing the ability to appropriately handle the complexity of classroom situations requires a systemic approach. This study aimed to explore the experiences in and effects of a systemic-phenomenological professional development program for enhancing teacher abilities to handle complex (classroom) situations through conscious attention for intuition. In the present study, 64 teachers from primary, secondary, and higher education participated in a 12 week professional development program featuring systemic-phenomenological exercises, such as meditations and embodied simulations. By increasing understanding of the complexity of social systems and sensitizing awareness of intuitive signals, the program aimed to improve teachers’ use of intuition, and through that, their handling of classroom situations. Data were gathered through participant reflection logs and focus group discussions, which were analysed both deductively and inductively. The findings suggest that the program helped heighten teacher awareness of intuitions, and individual awareness in the classroom, yielding positive effects on teacher abilities to take appropriate split-second action in complex classroom situations. While further research is needed, the results of this study include practices for enhancing teacher awareness of intuition through systemic-phenomenological exercises which proved to be promising, and a taxonomy of effects related to pedagogical tact in the classroom.

We examined emergent tact control following stimulus pairing, using 2 different stimulus presentation arrangements. In the word-first condition, presentation of the auditory stimulus preceded the visual stimulus, and in the image-first condition, the visual stimulus preceded the auditory stimulus. Eight children (2–5 years old) participated. In Experiment 1, 4 children were exposed to 3 sessions in each condition with a new set of stimuli in each session. In Experiment 2, 2 of the same children received repeated exposure to the same stimulus sets. Experiment 3, with new participants, was identical to Experiment 1, except visual and auditory stimuli overlapped during the presentation. Postsession probes documented emergent stimulus control over 1 or more vocal responses for 7 of the 8 participants. Participants were more likely to make echoic responses with the visual stimulus present in the word-first condition; however, emergent tact control was unaffected by the order of the stimulus presentation. Additional research is needed on stimulus-pairing procedures and on the role of echoic responding in emergent tact control.

A common practice in tact training is to include a supplemental verbal stimulus (e.g., “What is it?”) in addition to the presentation of a nonverbal discriminative stimulus. Previous literature has suggested that this supplemental verbal stimulus can impede acquisition and generalization relative to the presentation of the object alone, as it may establish faulty stimulus control or decrease spontaneous tacting. Research has yet to compare these 2 training methods on the generalization of learned tacts to more naturalistic, play-based environments. The present study evaluated the use of “What is it?” compared to the presentation of only the nonverbal discriminative stimulus on tact acquisition among 3 children with autism spectrum disorder and the extent to which these training procedures led to tacting in a play-based setting following discrete-trial training. Overall, participants learned to tact stimuli under both conditions, and all participants demonstrated generalization of tacts in a play-based setting. Recommendations for the development and evaluation of naturalistic posttraining assessment are discussed.

Pairing discriminative stimuli with unique reinforcers provides an additional cue to correct responding. In the current study, we evaluated the effectiveness of the differential outcomes procedure in teaching novel tacts and facilitating transfer of tacts to novel discriminative stimuli. Four children diagnosed with developmental or intellectual disability were taught a unique pair of related tacts both under a differential outcomes condition and under a nondifferential outcomes condition where the reinforcers were uncorrelated with the sample stimuli. In the former, the different outcomes were two forms of the same reinforcer. Three out of four participants met the mastery criterion sooner under the differential outcomes condition. Two participants also generalized to novel stimuli under the differential outcomes condition. When we tested for the inclusion of the reinforcers in the stimulus class, three participants demonstrated the acquisition of emergent stimulus–outcomes and response–outcomes relations. The study provides support for the use of the differential outcomes procedure as a cost-effective means of enhancing the acquisition of discriminated responses in an applied setting.

This article describes a procedure to investigate metaphorical extension of tacts, and reports preliminary data. Six college students learned to choose between four pseudo-words to tact four species (classes) of creature-like pictures. The defining properties controlling the tacts (selections) were color and shape, but two of the species—Clai and Trax—had experimentally manipulated adventitious properties (e.g., wings, hair) whereas the other species, Fite and Dag did not have these properties. In subsequent phases, these adventitious properties were added either to the Fite or to the Dag, and standard tacts were punished with negative feedback. Extension of the tacts "Clai" and "Trax" was observed to Fite and Dag pictures that appeared with the adventitious properties previously associated with Clai or Trax pictures. These metaphorical extensions continued to occur in test phases without differential consequences. These preliminary data show that the procedure has potential to simulate metaphorical extension in the lab and to allow the experimental investigation of variables that affect this phenomenon.

Errorless learning and error correction procedures are commonly used when teaching tact relations to individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Research has demonstrated the effectiveness of both procedures, as well as compared them. The majority of these studies have been completed through the use of single-subject experimental designs. Evaluating both procedures using a group design may contribute to the literature and help disseminate research related to the behavioral science of language to a larger audience. The purpose of the present study was to compare an errorless learning procedure to an error correction procedure to teach tact relations to 28 individuals diagnosed with ASD through a randomized clinical trial. Several variables were assessed, including the number of stimulus sets with which participants reached the mastery criterion, responding during pre- and postprobes, responding during teaching, efficiency, and the presence of aberrant behavior. The results indicated that both procedures were effective, efficient, and unlikely to evoke aberrant behavior, despite participants in the error correction condition engaging in significantly more independent correct responses and independent incorrect responses.

Researchers have identified protocols to induce verbal behavior cusps and capabilities that put an individual’s repertoires in contact with new contingencies and allows the individual to learn in new ways; however, little is known about the relationship between different intensities (i.e., doses) of the protocols and inducing important repertoires. The Intensive Tact Instruction (ITI) has been found to reliably induce Bidirectional Naming (BiN), a capability whereby an individual is able to function simultaneously as a speaker and a listener, to acquire language incidentally after exposure to word–object relations in the environment. We matched eight participants into four dyads and participants in dyads experienced different intensities of the ITI protocol. The full intensity protocol included 100 additional tact learning opportunities each day and the accelerated intensity included 50 daily learning opportunities. We found varied results dependent on a participant’s degree of BiN at the onset of the intervention. Participants with Unidirectional Naming (UniN) acquired BiN under both intensities, but participants in the accelerated condition did so with fewer learning opportunities, suggesting the efficiency of the accelerated protocol. Students that demonstrated No-incidental Naming (NiN) demonstrated mixed results from the intervention, regardless of intervention intensity. The outcomes are discussed in terms of efficiency and cost effectiveness.

We evaluated the efficacy of a most-to-least intrusive error-correction/prompting procedure for teaching 3 children with autism to tact the private events of others through publicly accompanying stimuli. Participants did not reliably demonstrate correct tact responses to publicly observable stimuli that accompany common emotions reported by others (e.g., bandage = hurt) in baseline. Procedures were taken from the Promoting the Emergence of Advanced Knowledge Relational Training System: Direct Training Module (PEAK-DT) to aid in clinical replication, and training was introduced in a multiple-baseline design. Results showed that the procedures were efficacious in teaching this skill to each of the participants, and fast rates of acquisition were observed.

The current study combined equivalence-based instruction and instructive feedback (IF) with two groups of children with autism spectrum disorder. For group 1, three sets of three targets were tested, and for group 2, two sets of three targets were tested. For each target stimulus, the following verbal operants were evaluated: (1) tact name, (2) tact feature, (3) name-feature intraverbal, and (4) feature-name intraverbal. Following individual across set probes (ASP) sessions evaluating all targets in all sets, group treatment was conducted with set 1. During group treatment, tact training was provided to each participant relating to his/her assigned target and IF relating to a feature of the target was provided. Once daily probe data indicated all targets were mastered by the assigned participant, ASP were repeated. This process was repeated across all evaluated sets in the form of a multiple probe design. Results indicated robust responding for three participants, with evidence of responding to observational targets, secondary targets (related to the IF), and emergence of intraverbal responses. A fourth participant showed moderate levels of correct responding, particularly with observational targets. Overall, results suggest that group IF and stimulus equivalence are viable interventions for some children with ASD.

Children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) typically exhibit a range of social communication deficits. Presequenced stimulus arrangements, such as matrix training, can be used to facilitate generative responding. Accordingly, training procedures can lead to the acquisition of a greater number of targets that are not taught explicitly, with fewer learning trials. Matrix training provides a useful framework for selecting teaching targets to promote the emergence of untaught skills. Participants were 3 young boys diagnosed with ASD, who were taught noun-verb combinations of play actions as tact and listener responses. All participants learned the taught noun-verb targets and showed varying degrees of recombinative generalization to untaught targets. Across subsequent matrices, the rate of acquisition of new targets and the number acquired without direct teaching increased (i.e., recombinative generalization). This suggests matrix training stimulus arrangements can facilitate the acquisition of novel targets by teaching young children with ASD to recombine language components appropriately.

Teaching tact and intraverbal responses based on function-feature-class to children with language delays can result in the emergence of untrained relational responses. The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of compound stimuli in discriminated operants (i.e., different combinations of hear, see, touch, and taste) on the acquisition of object-attribute relations, on the emergence of untrained attribute-object relations, and on the acquisition and emergence of same-different relations between objects and their attributes. All the participants were on the autism spectrum and between 4 and 12 years old. Participants who did not meet the mastery criterion or show emergent intraverbal responses during initial training trials completed a fluency-based practice phase. Overall results showed that all six participants required fewer trials to meet the criterion in the condition involving compound stimuli (e.g., HearSeeSay plus Touch, Taste, or Sniff) as compared to the HearSeeSay-alone condition. In addition, participants required fewer fluency practice timings in the condition involving compound stimuli to meet fluency aim.

Matrix training consists of preplanning instruction by arranging components of desired skills across a minimum of two axes. In the current study, three matrices were developed for each participant (e.g., Matrix 1, Generalization Matrix 1, and Generalization Matrix 2) with known color and shape components. Following baseline, nonoverlapping (i.e., diagonal) training was conducted with Matrix 1. Results of posttests were used to determine the extent of emergence of untrained color-shape combinations across all matrices. Results from all six participants indicated that mastery criteria were eventually met for Matrix 1. For five participants, mastery criteria were also eventually met for generalization matrices. Results replicate findings from prior studies and offer a simple approach for both testing emergence of untrained skills and remediating responding.

We evaluated the effects of tact training when instruction was presented in English only compared to tact training in a bilingual format (in English and the home language, Portuguese) for a participant diagnosed with a communication disorder. The participant’s parents completed a questionnaire describing his exposure to both languages prior to the start of the study. We also conducted formal language assessments to determine the participant’s preexisting language abilities. An adapted alternating treatment design was used to compare the rate of acquisition in the two training conditions. Results show the participant emitted more correct responses during tact training in English than during the bilingual tact training. Generalization and maintenance of acquired tact responses for stimuli trained in the bilingual condition were greater than for stimuli trained in the English-only condition. These results are discussed with respect to implications for language-training programs for children with language delays and developmental disabilities, and we outline suggestions for future research in this area.

Skinner (1957) described the tact as the most important verbal operant; however, there remains a disproportionate amount of research evaluating mand training compared to tact training for young children with autism. The current study sought to alleviate some of this disparity by evaluating the effectiveness of the iPad® and application Proloquo2Go™ as a speech-generating device, using a multiple baseline design, on the acquisition of a tact repertoire in three preschool aged children with autism. The procedures employed a time delay with full physical prompts, during a “circle time” routine. During the circle time routine, the classroom teacher would read the lift-the-flap children’s book “Where’s Spot?” and pause for five-seconds upon reaching the targeted animal for each respective student. During this time delay if the student independently selected the picture that corresponded to the animal, evoking the SGD’s digitized output, the teacher provided verbal praise. If the child did not respond or responded incorrectly, a full physical prompt was used to evoke the tact of the animal. Results indicated that all three participants acquired the ability to tact at least one animal at 100% independence, across three consecutive sessions, after an average of four training sessions. This skill was also found to maintain for those two participants for whom maintenance data were taken. These results extend the evidence base on the use of the iPad® and application Proloquo2Go™ as a SGD, as well as, the research based on tacting acquisition.

We assessed the efficiency of tact and listener training for eight participants with autism spectrum disorder. Tact and listener probes were conducted in baseline for all target sets, and then tact training was initiated with one and listener training with another. Following mastery of one set, tact and listener probes were conducted with only the sets assigned to the same modality of training (i.e., sets 1, 3, and 5 for tact; sets 2, 4, and 6 for listener). Training and probes were repeated for all sets. The measures of efficiency included the number of skills mastered through direct training, the number of skills that emerged without training, the number of trials-to-criterion, and maintenance of skills. Clinical programming based on each participant’s results is discussed. For six participants, tact training was more efficient than listener training across multiple measures. For the remaining two participants, tact training and listener training were considered equivalent.

Background Designing implementation interventions to change the behaviour of healthcare providers and other professionals in the health system requires detailed specification of the behaviour(s) targeted for change to ensure alignment between intervention components and measured outcomes. Detailed behaviour specification can help to clarify evidence-practice gaps, clarify who needs to do what differently, identify modifiable barriers and enablers, design interventions to address these and ultimately provides an indicator of what to measure to evaluate an intervention’s effect on behaviour change. An existing behaviour specification framework proposes four domains (Target, Action, Context, Time; TACT), but insufficiently clarifies who is performing the behaviour (i.e. the Actor). Specifying the Actor is especially important in healthcare settings characterised by multiple behaviours performed by multiple different people. We propose and describe an extension and re-ordering of TACT to enhance its utility to implementation intervention designers, practitioners and trialists: the Action, Actor, Context, Target, Time (AACTT) framework. We aim to demonstrate its application across key steps of implementation research and to provide tools for its use in practice to clarify the behaviours of stakeholders across multiple levels of the healthcare system. Methods and results We used French et al.’s four-step implementation process model to describe the potential applications of the AACTT framework for (a) clarifying who needs to do what differently, (b) identifying barriers and enablers, (c) selecting fit-for-purpose intervention strategies and components and (d) evaluating implementation interventions. Conclusions Describing and detailing behaviour using the AACTT framework may help to enhance measurement of theoretical constructs, inform development of topic guides and questionnaires, enhance the design of implementation interventions and clarify outcome measurement for evaluating implementation interventions.

Ingvarsson and Hollobaugh (2011) investigated tact- or echoic-to-intraverbal transfer of stimulus control to “wh” questions for three preschool-aged boys with autism. The current study was a systematic replication of this study with an adolescent girl with Down syndrome. A multielement design was used to compare the effectiveness and efficiency of picture or echoic prompts presented on an iPad or in vivo to teach “wh” questions. All prompt conditions were effective. Conclusions and recommendations for practice are presented.

The effects of learning tacts and intraverbals with the same response of probed intraverbals on the emergence of symmetrical intraverbals was analyzed in 2 experiments (e.g., “Name the country of the Kalash”–“Pakistan” was probed after learning the intraverbal with the stimulus–response functions interchanged—such as, “Name the tribe of Pakistan”–“The Kalash”). In Experiment 1, the effects of learning tacts with the probed intraverbal as the response was explored by teaching participants to say the word in the presence of the picture (e.g., the experimenter presented a picture of a Kalash woman and asked, “Name the country” –“Pakistan” is the correct response). Five of the 6 participants demonstrated the emergence of the probed intraverbals after learning the tacts, but not before. In Experiment 2, the effects of learning an intraverbal with an identical response to the probe, rather than a tact as in Experiment 1, was explored (e.g., learning to say “Pakistan” in response to “Name a country of Asia”). Five of the 6 participants demonstrated emergence of the probed intraverbals after learning intraverbals with the probed response, but not before. In summary, the results of the 2 experiments demonstrated that learning skills with the response of the targeted intraverbals facilitates the emergence of them. These results may have implications for the design of educational programs aimed at facilitating emergent skills in children with and without learning difficulties.

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the TREAT-NMD Advisory Committee for Therapeutics (TACT), a group of multidisciplinary experts that evaluates drug development programmes for rare neuromuscular diseases and identifies pitfalls. Here, we discuss the experience with TACT based on its reviews of more than 50 applications and its potential as a model for other rare disorders. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the TREAT-NMD Advisory Committee for Therapeutics (TACT), a group of multidisciplinary experts that evaluates drug development programmes for rare neuromuscular diseases and identifies pitfalls. Here, we discuss the experience with TACT based on its reviews of more than 50 applications and its potential as a model for other rare disorders.

The current study evaluated whether training intraverbal naming would be sufficient to establish visual-visual matching-to-sample (MTS) performances in college students. In the first experiment, we used a multiple-probe design across stimulus sets to assess whether six participants could match arbitrary visual stimuli (AB) after learning to tact their two experimentally defined classes (A' and B') and then intraverbally relate their names (i.e., "A' goes with B'"). All participants matched the stimuli accurately after training, as well as emitted the trained intraverbals. In the second experiment, we used a multiple baseline design across four participants to assess whether the same training would produce bi-directional intraverbals in the form of "B' goes with A'," and MTS performance consistent with symmetry (BA). All participants responded accurately during matching and intraverbal tests. Across both experiments, participants stated the trained intraverbals while performing the matching task. Results showed that MTS performance can be established solely by verbal behavior training.

This research explored the effects of teaching tacts with two procedures on the emergence of intraverbals in 5- and 6-year-old children. Three children in Experiment 1 learned 2 verbally controlled tacts in the presence of a picture of a woman. For example, when they were asked “Name the country,” they learned to say her country (e.g., Pakistan); when they were asked “Name the tribe,” they learned to say the name of her tribe (e.g., Kalash). Then, the 2 country-tribe intraverbals were probed without reinforcement (e.g., “Name the tribe from Pakistan”—–“The Kalash”). The three children demonstrated the emergence of the intraverbals. Seven children in Experiment 2 learned a tact (either to name the country or the tribe), as in Experiment 1, and an intraverbal (either “Name the tribe from Pakistan” —“The Kalash” or “Name the country of the Kalash” —“Pakistan,” respectively). Five children demonstrated the emergence of the probed intraverbals. These procedures were demonstrated to be effective to produce the emergence of the intraverbals. We discuss why the procedure in Experiment 1 was slightly more effective than that of Experiment 2 in terms of the discriminative control exerted by the nonverbal and verbal stimuli in each condition. The procedure can be useful for promoting the emergence of intraverbals in children with and without learning disabilities.

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., saying "eagle" when presented with the recording of an eagle cawing). Following test probes for simple intraverbals as well as intraverbal categorization participants were taught to tact what each auditory stimulus is (e.g., saying "caw" when presented with the recording of an eagle cawing). Following both tact instructional phases, the effects of an auditory imagining instruction procedure on target intraverbals were examined. Results indicate that following both tact instructional phases, intraverbals increased for three of four participants. Auditory imagining instruction was sufficient for two of four participants to reach mastery criterion, and two of four participants needed some direct instruction. Low covariation between simple intraverbal and categorization was also observed. Functional interdependence between tacts and intraverbals and the possible role of a conditioned hearing response are discussed.

We analyzed the emergence of intraverbals, tacts, and selection in response to names spoken by the experimenter as a result of observing auditory stimulus pairing in 12 typical developing adults randomly assigned to two experimental and one control condition. In Part 1, four sounds of musical instruments were paired with their respective names spoken by the experimenter; in Part 2, the sounds were paired with their native country names spoken by the experimenter. Participants in Condition 1 received the pairing sequence of Parts 1 and 2; participants in Condition 2 received the pairing sequence of Parts 2 and 1. After pairing, tacts emerged in all participants and selections emerged in most participants. After the completion of the two pairing phases, intraverbals emerged in three participants of Condition 1. The participants of Condition 2 also demonstrated instances of emergence, but fewer than those of Condition 1. Thus, the sequence of the pairing phases influenced the emergence. Moreover, the intraverbals with the country as responses emerged more quickly than the intraverbals with the instrument as responses. The findings have direct implications on the teaching procedures to facilitate these types of emergence.

Several researchers have compared the effectiveness of tact or textual prompts to echoic prompts for teaching intraverbal behavior to young children with autism. We extended this line of research by comparing the effectiveness of visual (textual or tact) prompts to echoic prompts to teach intraverbal responses to three young adults with autism. An adapted alternating treatments design was used with 2 to 3 comparisons for each participant. The results were mixed and did not reveal a more effective prompting procedure across participants, suggesting that the effectiveness of a prompting tactic may be idiosyncratic. The role of one’s learning history and the implications for practitioners teaching intraverbal behavior to individuals with autism are discussed.

Ostensive signals preceding referential cues are crucial in communication-based human knowledge acqui- sition processes. Since dogs are sensitive to both human ostensive and referential signals, here we investigate whether they also take into account the order of these signals and, in an object-choice task, respond to human pointing more readily when it is preceded by an ostensive cue indicating communicative intent. Adult pet dogs (n = 75) of different breeds were presented with different sequences of a three-step human action. In the relevant sequence (RS) condition, subjects were presented with an ostensive attention getter (verbal addressing and eye con- tact), followed by referential pointing at one of two iden- tical targets and then a non-ostensive attention getter (clapping of hands). In the irrelevant sequence (IS) con- dition, the order of attention getters was swapped. We found that dogs chose the target indicated by pointing more frequently in the RS as compared to the IS condition. While dogs selected randomly between the target locations in the IS condition, they performed significantly better than chance in the RS condition. Based on a further control experiment (n = 22), it seems that this effect is not driven by the aversive or irrelevant nature of the non-ostensive cue. This suggests that dogs are sensitive to the order of signal sequences, and the exploitation of human referential pointing depends on the behaviour pattern in which the informing cue is embedded.

Recently, there has been a proliferation of research on the functional independence of two of Skinner’s (1957) verbal operants, the mand, and the tact. This research has produced highly variable results. In this article, we provide a critical review of the literature on mand–tact independence, a literature that has implications for both theory and practice. Included in the review are 17 studies with a total of 66 participants who were tested for mand emergence following tact training, tact emergence following mand training, or both, and 11 additional studies that systematically manipulated variables expected to affect the outcomes of such tests. A primary finding is that most studies to date suffer from problems with construct validity. However, it may be justifiable to conclude that the literature provides at least weak support for the functional independence of mands and tacts. Future investigators should avoid the major construct validity pitfalls described in this article, describe participant characteristics more thoroughly, and consider alternative approaches to studying mand–tact independence.

This paper explores the concepts of tact and empathy in the context of the Freud-Ferenczi correspondence around Ferenczi's "The Elasticity of Psycho-Analytic Technique" paper. It goes on to explore the problems that they encounter in the neighborhood of reconciling science and subjectivity, in relation to the work on personal knowledge of the Hungarian philosopher Michael Polanyi and concludes with some implications for psychoanalytic training.

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. Participants' tacting and listener responses of the visual stimuli were then evaluated during a test phase. MEI with novel pairs of auditory and visual stimuli was conducted if participants did not demonstrate criterion performance on tact and listener probes. SPOP in conjunction with MEI was shown to be effective in establishing some of the tact and listener relations for the three participants. However, accuracy on tact probes was always lower than listener probes. The participant who responded with the highest accuracy on untaught tact and listener probes also displayed echoic responding on the lowest proportion of SPOP instruction and listener test trials.

We evaluated the effects of collateral response requirements during listener training on the emergence of vocal foreign-language tacts and intraverbals among 4- and 5-year-old children. In Experiment 1, participants were first exposed to auditory-visual match-to-sample training without collateral response requirements. Four participants did not perform to criterion in probes for derived vocal responses, and were exposed to a two-phase intervention that involved adding echoic and native-language tact requirements to match-to-sample trials. Performance did not improve as a result of the intervention. However, all participants passed tact probes after receiving direct tact and intraverbal training with a subset of the stimuli, and two of four participants also passed the intraverbal probes. Experiment 2 addressed potential limitations of Experiment 1 with three additional participants, but collateral response requirements still failed to affect the emergence of tacts and intraverbals.

Numerous sexual disorders, which were previously in the foreground, have in fact disappeared due to our changing society. This broad field today includes repressed sexual disorders of adolescents who cannot or do not want to go along with the changes either for familial or personal reasons. Immigrant background, religious beliefs, and peer pressure may play a role here. As a dialog partner for adolescents, the competent physician must take into consideration the interplay of sexual desire, ethical beliefs, morals, and parental expectations, which requires interest, intuition, and tact.

Mand training is an essential component of verbal behavior training for any individual who lacks this skill. The current study replicates and extends, with some procedural differences, the work of Hall and Sundberg (1987) by using an interrupted chain procedure to teach mands for missing items to children with autism. The participants were 3 children with autism, ranging between 5 and 8 years of age, who would regularly mand for a wide variety of reinforcers when they were present but would rarely mand for items that were not in sight (i.e., missing items). Participants were first taught to complete 3 behavior chains. Subsequently, the chains were interrupted by removing 1 item needed to complete each chain to contrive motivating operations (MOs) as a means of teaching mands for missing items. Following mand training incorporating vocal prompt and prompt fading procedures, all participants emitted unprompted mands for the missing items within the context of the trained chains and within the context of novel, untrained chains. After teaching mands for missing items, probes were conducted to test for untrained tact acquisition. All participants also demonstrated tact responses relative to the missing items as a result of the mand training.

This article addresses Chinas multilateral diplomacy by identifying four distinct strategies: watching, engaging, circumventing, and shaping. The typology builds on two literatures: power transition theory, and the more recent “assertiveness” discourse in the West. Drawing from a range of cases in both the economic and security domains, the article argues that China’s multilateralism is diverse, and that it cannot be un-problematically characterized as either status-quo or revisionist in nature. However, the general trend appears to be towards engagement, but with an assertive tact as China’s interests become further entangled in the business of international institutions.

We report 2 experiments that tested the effects of multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across training sets on the emergence of productive autoclitic frames (suffixes) for 6 preschoolers with and without language-based disabilities. We implemented multiple exemplar tact instruction with subsets of stimuli whose “names” contained the suffix “-er” denoting the comparative form of adjectives. Subsets of stimuli included regular, irregular, and contrived tacts containing the target relational autoclitic frame in order to determine if our MEI procedure would induce the abstraction of the frame across all stimulus sets. In the second experiment, additional tasks were introduced to the participants to control for a possible sequence effect. A nonconcurrent multiple probe design was used to evaluate the functional relation between MEI and emergence of untaught tact responses containing the comparative adjective “-er.” The results of both experiments showed relations between MEI and novel, untaught tact responses containing the target autoclitic frame; the second experiment showing a functional relation. The results are discussed in terms of environmental sources for productive verbal behavior.

Gutierrez (2006) experimentally demonstrated the effects of joint control and particularly the role of response mediation in the sequencing behavior of adults using an unfamiliar language. The purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend the procedures used by Gutierrez by comparing the effects of joint control training with the effects of a prompt-and-fade procedure on the acquisition of a sequencing task. The effects of each procedure on delayed sequencing behavior were also tested. Ten undergraduate students participated in 2 experiments. The results indicated that all participants acquired the sequencing response in fewer trials and maintained accurate delayed responding when the component responses necessary for joint control were directly taught. Finally, when the self-echoic mediation component was blocked, accurate responding deteriorated in 8 of 10 participants.

This study was a systematic extension of Karmali, Greer, Nuzzulo-Gomez, Ross, and Rivera-Valdes (2005) and Ahearn, Clark, MacDonald, and Chung (2007). We investigated the effects of a tact correction procedure on stereotypic vocalizations in 4 children diagnosed with autism who ranged in age from 6 to 16 years. Participants had limited vocal verbal repertoires and were primarily dependent on prompts for the emission of appropriate vocalizations. A multiple-baseline design across participants was used. Data were collected on instances of stereotypic vocalizations and independent tacts during baseline conditions and on instances of stereotypic vocalizations, independent tacts, and echoic-tacts during intervention. Procedural integrity and social validity data were also obtained. The results indicated a decrease in stereotypic vocalizations for 3 of the 4 participants and a slight increase in appropriate vocal verbal behavior (i.e., tacting) for all participants. The study provides support for the use of tact correction procedures to decrease stereotypic vocalizations and increase appropriate vocalizations in children with autism.

Research on the functional independence of verbal operants (Skinner, 1957) has demonstrated inconsistent findings. One explanation may be that these studies have not manipulated the motivating operation (MO) to facilitate the emergence of mands (Hall & Sundberg, 1987; Lamarre & Holland, 1985). In the current study, 1 participant, diagnosed with autism, was taught to tact high-preference and low-preference leisure items, and emergence of mands was tested under varying MO conditions. Results showed the emergence of mands following periods of arranged deprivation, and greater maintenance for a highly preferred relative to a less preferred stimulus. However, mands only emerged when presession tact trials were conducted. These results suggest that in a state of deprivation, transfer of stimulus control from discriminative to motivational conditions may occur without direct training.

The computer engineers who refer to the education of computers do not have a definite idea of education and do not bother to justify the fuzzy ones to which they allude. Hence, they logically cannot specify the features a computer must have in order to be educable. This paper puts forth a non-standard, but not arbitrary, concept of education that determines such traits. The proposed concept is derived from the idea of education embedded in modern standard-English discourse. Because the standard concept entails that an educable entity must be capable of consciousness and voluntary action, it cannot apply to computers. If, therefore, one is to have an idea of educable computers, one must drop the feature of consciousness and omit or modify that of voluntariness. The advanced concept leaves out consciousness, alters the ordinary notion of voluntariness, but keeps in tact the other criteria of the standard idea. Thereby, it provides continuity between those who talk about education in modern ordinary English and those who talk about it in the world of artificial intelligence.

We evaluated the facilitative effects of multiple exemplar training (MET) on the establishment of derived tact relations in typically developing children. A multiple-probe design across stimulus sets was implemented to introduce MET. Participants were first taught to conditionally relate dictated names in English to their corresponding objects (listener behavior; A-B relations), followed by tests for derived tacts (B-A relations). If participants failed these tests, MET was implemented whereby tact relations were explicitly taught with novel stimulus sets, followed by test probes with the original training set. MET continued with novel stimuli until participants met criterion for the emergence of derived tact relations or after exposure to three MET sets. Results indicated failed tests for tact relations following direct training in listener relations, and marked improvements in derived tact relations following MET across all participants.

Individuals with autism often experience difficulty acquiring a functional intraverbal repertoire, despite demonstrating strong mand, tact, and listener skills. This learning problem may be related to the fact that the primary antecedent variable for most intraverbal behavior involves a type of multiple control identified as a verbal conditional discrimination (VC(D)). The current study is a descriptive analysis that sought to determine if there is a general sequence of intraverbal acquisition by typically developing children and for children with autism, and if this sequence could be used as a framework for intraverbal assessment and intervention. Thirty-nine typically developing children and 71 children with autism were administered an 80-item intraverbal subtest that contained increasingly difficult intraverbal questions and VC(D)s. For the typically developing children the results showed that there was a correlation between age and correct intraverbal responses. However, there was variability in the scores of children who were the same age. An error analysis revealed that compound VC(D)s were the primary cause of errors. Children with autism made the same types of errors as typically developing children who scored at their level on the subtest. These data suggest a potential framework and sequence for intraverbal assessment and intervention.

This study examined the functional independence of mand and tact operants in normally developing children and evaluated the role of SDs in demonstrating emergent responding. In Experiment 1, 4 children aged 4 to 5 years, were trained to mand or tact using left/right relations, then were tested for the emergence of the untaught tact/ mand operant. None of the participants demonstrated an emergence of the untaught operant under standard antecedent conditions. However, all of the participants demonstrated an emergence of the untaught operant when the SDs were modified. Experiment 2 replicated the work in Experiment 1, using 8 participants. The conditions were reversed according to ABAB reversal design methodology and counterbalanced across participants. The findings demonstrated the important role of antecedent variables in emergent responding.

Time-Cost Trade-Off Problem (TCTP), to determine optimal option among many options of construction work of high-rise building, is an issue that needs to be addressed to optimize construction duration with minimal cost. Despite the fact that the crashing process entailed in a network scheduling method is not suitable for the repetitive activities of a construction project, traditional time-cost trade-off focuses on the techniques for minimizing construction cost and time in a network-based scheduling method. In addition, time-cost relationships are usually presumed to be linear, not nonlinear. Since only integer durations (days) are considered in construction scheduling, linear approximation is not fully suitable to solve the TCTP. Thus, time-cost relationships need to be redefined at discrete points representing time-cost options. In addition, Tact scheduling is one of the most useful scheduling methods to reflect the repetitiveness usually demonstrated in a LOB (Line of Balance) form. However, Tact scheduling requires too much time and effort to determine Tact time, options (cost and time of activity), and the group of activities with the same option. Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are efficient in searching for optimal solutions among decision alternatives. Thus, the authors propose a time-cost trade-off method of Tact scheduling that uses GAs.

This study examined the effects of a modified antecedent during probes for emergent mands following listener versus tact training for children with autism. Eight students, aged 7 to 11, were trained to respond to 3 sets of relational responses (front/back, left/right, on/under), each assigned a nonsense label. Three training types were evaluated: listener training, tact training, and listener– tact training combined. Following the experimental training, probes for emergent mands were conducted under modified antecedent conditions. Results showed that modified antecedent conditions were critical in demonstrating mand emergence for some participants.

The purpose of this series of experiments was to evaluate the effects of mixed mand-tact arrangements on the acquisition of mands and tacts in preschool-aged children. In Experiment 1, the effects of three training arrangements (mand-only training, tact-only training, and mand-tact training) were investigated with 3 typically developing children. Rates of acquisition in single (mand-only and tact-only) versus mixed (mand-tact) presentation were comparable, in contrast to earlier investigations. Experiment 2 attempted to clarify the equivocal findings of Experiment 1 by directly replicating the Carroll and Hesse (1987) investigation with 2 typically developing children. Results again demonstrated no clear benefit of mixed verbal operant training on tact acquisition. In Experiment 3, these same arrangements were evaluated with a boy with autism and included assessments to determine that a relevant establishing operation was in effect prior to each mand training session. Experiment 3 again failed to demonstrate the facilitative effects of mand-tact training on the acquisition of mands or tacts. Taken together, the data from these three experiments fail to support the improved efficiency of mand-tact training suggested by prior studies. Findings are discussed in the context of future research investigating mixed verbal operant arrangements.

The purpose of the current study was to assess whether individuals with intellectual disabilities would emit untrained speaker responses (i.e., signed tacts and mands) after being taught listener behaviors. Listener relations were trained via an automated matching-to-sample (MTS) procedure. Following mastery, the emergence of signed tacts, generalized tacts, and mands was tested. All participants met criterion in listener relations training and showed the emergence of almost all relations. Results suggest that teaching listener relations first, through MTS tasks, is a viable way to produce emergence of speaker relations.

Background Considerable time and energy are expended in the scientific community to discuss the validity, importance, and applicability of the results of clinical trials. Depending on the goals, perspectives, and other motivating factors, protagonists and skeptics come to different conclusions, even when using the same methods and tools for critical appraisal. The aim of this study was to complement existing methods and tools with minor modifications to provide a prototype instrument that generates commonly accepted versions of critical appraisals. Methods As a pilot experiment, one university-based and one industry-based referee independently completed the twin assessment of five trials published in well-recognized journals. Theyidentifiedthe study questions, defined the simplest, i.e., ideal, study designs to answer these questions, and checked eight validity criteria. Identical positive or negative answers of both referees increased or decreased the validity score. A maximum of two disagreements (0 score) was allowed. This procedure, which had been tested by two referees in a pilot experiment, was repeated with 19 third-year medical students and their supervisor at the Universidade Federal Fluminense, Niteroi/RJ, Brasil. Four students each played the roles of the industry-based and university-based referees and finally recorded their consensus. Results The two referees of the pilot experiment agreed in all but one answer to the five investigated publications. The points of criticism differed in various papers. The consensus reached by the students considerably differed from the consensus reached by the referees. Conclusions A consensus score generated by two referees or bytwo groups of studentsis feasible, but the achieved resultis not necessarily reproducible. The critical appraisal of the study question in connection with the applied study design deserves special attention. Itis time consuming but possible to identify and describe the possible flaws in the design conduct and report of clinical trials, but it is unlikely to reach a reproducible interpretation. These data indicate the problems with even evidence-based assessments and appraisals: the assessments may well be reproducible, but not the appraisals. Quality scores that include also the appraisal may therefore be interpreted with caution. Appraisals or quality scores may be used for interim decisions until data are available that confirm under real-world conditions what was predicted by the results

We tested the effects of teaching peer monitoring on the emergence of an observational learning (OL) capability in 2 experiments using delayed multiple probe designs with children diagnosed with developmental disabilities. In probes for the OL capability before and after each stage of the peer monitoring intervention, participants received unconsequated probes on material that was novel to them after they observed peers who were taught mastery of the material. In Experiment 1, 2 participants were probed for the presence of OL of textual responses and tact responses to pictures taught to peers prior to and after each stage of the peer monitoring intervention. In the training, target participants observed peers receiving different instruction involving reinforcement for accuracy and corrections for errors. After participants met criterion on the monitoring intervention, they demonstrated OL with the peer they trained with and a novel peer. In Experiment 2, the same results accrued for vocal spelling responses. The data suggest that for children like these, acquiring the capability to learn by observing instruction received by others in classrooms results from monitoring others receive instruction.

The functions of an American Sign Language response were experimentally evaluated with a young boy diagnosed with autism. A functional analysis procedure based on that reported by Lerman et al. (2005) was used to evaluate whether the target sign response would occur under mand, tact, mimetic, or control conditions. The target sign was observed most often in the mand and mimetic test conditions, very seldom in the tact test condition, and never in the control condition. These results support those reported by Lerman et al. and extend previous research by evaluating a non-vocal verbal response using a brief multi-element arrangement with a single control condition. The implications for language assessment and suggestions for future research are discussed.

The phenomenon identified as naming is a key stage of language function that is missing in many children with autism and other language delay diagnoses. We identified four children with autism, who, prior to the implementation of this experiment, did not have the naming repertoire (either speaker to listener or listener to speaker) and who had no tact responses for two- or three-dimensional stimuli. Tact training alone did not result in a naming repertoire or echoic-to-tact responses for these students. We then provided multiple exemplar instruction (MEI) across speaker and listener repertoires for a subset of stimuli (the teaching set) that resulted in untaught response components of naming and the capability to acquire naming after learning tacts for subsequent sets of stimuli. We used a delayed multiple-baseline probe design with stimuli counterbalanced across participants. The results showed that for all four students, mastery of tacts alone (the baseline or initial training condition) was not sufficient for the naming or echoic-to-tact repertoires to emerge. Following MEI the naming repertoire emerged for all four students for the initial set of stimuli. In addition, we tested for naming with novel stimuli that were probed prior to the MEI and naming also emerged following tact instruction alone for these sets. The results are discussed in terms of the role of naming in the incidental acquisition of verbal functions as part of the speaker-as-own-listener repertoire.

In this paper we wish to argue that despite strong challenges to representational epistemology in the last two centuries, modern schooling is still organised around a representational view of knowledge. This is the case despite teaching practices being modified to accommodate different views of knowledge that have emerged in the last two centuries. This means, if schooling is to be brought in line with current epistemological trends, there is still a case for updating the epistemology of schooling. Our analysis shows, however, that this update will not leave the idea of modern schooling in tact. Updating the epistemology of schooling, so we argue, requires a fundamental rethink of the purposes of schooling.

Background Since 2005 lay representatives (‘Research Partners’ – RP) have been involved in the work of a clinical trials unit and academic research centre. Their roles can include attending trial management groups, reviewing documents and chairing and presenting at sub-committees. Where recruitment of RPs was once opportunistic, RPs are now more formally recruited in conjunction with a national public involvement organisation. The impact of RPs at the research centre had not been examined in-depth, nor research partners’ or staff members’ experiences been previously explored. The TACT study was conducted to investigate the input and impact of RPs to ensure the best possible working partnership between the centre and the public is achieved.