Verbal Behavior

We're still trying to help Lewis figure out how to have a voice.  Thus we've recently started verbal behavior therapy in addition to our weekly speech therapy.  Verbal behavior therapy is similar to Pivotal Response Therapy as briefly touched on in this post combined with Speech Therapy.  We've got ten new signs we are working on with Lewis.  Swing, Pancakes, iPad, School, Dance, Book, Drink, Marker, Up and we are trying to fine-tune LJ's signs for Didi and Bop (the traditional signs for grandma and grandpa).  The behavioral speech therapist (that's Ms. M, a board certified behavioral analyst and speech pathologist) has been largely focusing on Natural Environment Teaching with a focus on teaching "Manding" (that's the verbal behavior buzz word for requesting) to the early learner (that's Lewis).

The ABC's of Manding are:
-Antecedent: motivational operation (desire or motivation- Child)
Declares ie reaches, looks at an item, looks at therapist/caregiver
- Behavior: verbal behavior (vocal/sign)
- Consequence: specific to momentary operational/motivational operations
Most Important though= teaching our children that mand gives our children a voice


How are we doing this? We have to take extensive data whereby MANDS are incorporated.and/or contrived into daily activities throughout the day and then the data collected will be graphed and analyzed.  The specific data we are collecting is referred to in the verbal behavior world as "trial by trial".  Stuff like total mands per minute, full physical prompts per minute, gestural prompts, vocal prompts and item prompts per minute. The first data we collected suggested Noodle's total mands per minute was at like 0.46. Boo.  We want him at like 3!  So over the next month(s) we will be charting and graphing all sorts of fun data to formalize a behavioral assessment and plan that is appropriate for LJ. We are committed to practice and have faith that our dedication and our efforts will lead to a positive outcome.