Intraverbal Behavior and Verbal Conditional Discriminations …Intraverbal Behavior and Verbal...

Intraverbal Behavior and Verbal Conditional Discriminationsin Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism

Mark L. Sundberg, Sundberg & Associates

Cindy A. Sundberg, Parenting Partnerships

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

Key words: autism, intraverbal, language assessment, language intervention, typically developingchildren, verbal conditional discrimination

Much of our day-to-day verbal interactionwith each other involves intraverbal behav-ior. For example, a phone conversation or e-mail exchange between two people consistsof one person saying or writing something,and the other person responding to thecontent of what was said. The key aspect ofthe interaction is that the two verbalstatements do not match each other. If theydid, the verbal behavior would be classifiedas echoic or copying-a-text, neither of whichwould result in a useful conversation. Thereare many examples of intraverbal behaviorsuch as the ability to answer questions, tell

stories, describe events, solve problems,engage in debates, recall the past, and talkabout the future. In terms of society at large,many important elements of civilizationinvolve intraverbal behavior such as educa-tion, science, literature, history, intelligence,thinking, perception, and creativity (Skinner,1957, 1974).

Relative to Skinner’s (1957) other elemen-tary verbal operants (i.e., echoic, mand, tact,textual, transcriptive) and the listener rela-tions, the intraverbal relation has received theleast amount of conceptual or empiricalattention over the past 54 years. However,this situation has begun to change asdemonstrated by the increased number ofempirical studies on intraverbal behaviorpublished in the past few years (e.g.,Goldsmith, LeBlanc, & Sautter, 2007; In-gvarsson, Tiger, Hanley, & Stephenson,2007; Miguel, Petursdottir, & Carr, 2005;Perez-Gonzalez, Garcıa-Asenjo, Williams, &Carnerero, 2007; Petursdottir, Carr, Lechago,& Almason, 2008; Petursdottir & Haflioa-dottir, 2009; Shillingsburg, Kelley, Roane,Kisamore, & Brown, 2009). (For historicalreviews of intraverbal research see Oah &Dickinson, 1989 and Sautter & LeBlanc,2006.)

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior anvb-27-00-01.3d 7/6/11 23:58:32 23 Cust # 1118

We thank all those who helped conduct theintraverbal assessment (Kristen Albert, Judah Axe,Vincent Carbone, James Carr, Lori Chamberlain,Anne Cummings, Carla Epps, William Galbraith,Rebecca Godfrey, Lisa Hale, Ally Labrie, HeatherLaw, Mike Miklos, Shannon Montano, ShannonMuhlestein, Paige Raetz, Rikki Roden, DavidRoth, Rachael Sautter, Carl Sundberg, BrendaTerzich, Joel Vidovic, Kaisa Weathers, and AmyWiech) and the families of the children whoparticipated in the study. Portions of this paperwere presented as an Invited Tutorial at the 38thAnnual Association for Behavior Analysis Inter-national Convention, Phoenix, AZ, May 29, 2009.E-mail correspondence regarding this paper [email protected].

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior 2011, 27, 23–43

23

The types of intraverbal interactions thatpeople have with each other range fromsimple to extremely complex, and are endlessin number. Early intraverbal responses intypically developing children may be simple,but establish the foundation for more ad-vanced intraverbal interactions. For example,a young child around the age of 1K to 2 yearsold begins to learn to sing songs, providesounds that animals and objects make (e.g.,‘‘a kitty says …’’ or ‘‘a train goes …’’), andto fill-in words to reinforcing phrases (e.g.,‘‘peek-a …’’). By 2 years of age mostchildren can provide their first name whenasked, fill-in various phrases, and respond tosimple questions and word associations (e.g.,‘‘mommy and …’’). Typically, 2-year-oldsdo not have the skills yet for conversationson a specific topic, but they usually do havean extensive listener vocabulary, as well as astrong speaking vocabulary that consistsmainly of echoics, mands, and tacts (Sund-berg, 2008). Verbal development then occursrapidly between the ages of 2 and 3 (Bijou,1976; Brazelton & Sparrow, 2006; Brown,Cazden, & Bellugi, 1969; de Villers & deVillers, 1978; Ervin-Tripp, 1970; Hart &Risley, 1995; Moerk, 1986; Novak, 1996;Schlinger, 1995), and much of this developmentinvolves intraverbal behavior.

A common problem faced by children withautism and those with other types ofdevelopmental disabilities is the failure toacquire a functional intraverbal repertoire,despite acquiring a sizeable repertoire ofmands, tacts, and listener skills (e.g., Miklos,Dipuglia, & Galbraith, 2010, May). Often,these children do learn some simple intra-verbal behavior, but fail to attain morecomplex behavior. For example, they maybe able to provide their name and respond tosimple questions, but have problems answer-ing more difficult questions, describingexperiences, or staying on a specific topicof discussion. They may also emit irrelevantor rote intraverbal behavior that may beindependent from the current verbal context.These weak intraverbal skills may then havea substantial impact on the acquisition ofacademic and social skills because of thecentral role that intraverbal behavior plays inthose repertoires. For example, conversationsbetween two or more people depend heavilyon the intraverbal repertoires of each partic-

ipant. Failing to acquire an intraverbalrepertoire leaves conversation incompletebecause it is nearly impossible to have muchof a discussion about any specific topic withonly echoics, mands, and tacts.

Intraverbal behavior is often difficult toacquire due to the inherent complexity ofverbal stimulus control. Verbal stimuli usu-ally contain multiple parts, occur rapidly indiscourse, and are transitory. For example, asentence containing 7 or 8 words may bespoken in 2–3 seconds and these verbalstimuli dissipate immediately after beingemitted. On the other hand, tacting nounsfor example, may involve a visual item that ispresented for a period of time and thestimulus may not dissipate. Nonverbal itemscan be contrasted with non-examples (S-deltas) and stimulus discriminations as wellas stimulus and response classes can besystematically established.

There are a variety of prerequisite verbaland nonverbal skills that can help to ensurethat intraverbal behavior does not become arote verbal relation. That is, talking aboutthings and events when they are absent(intraverbal behavior) is less likely to be roteif a child can accurately and fluently talkabout and respond to those things and eventswhen they are present (tact and listenerskills). For example, in order to fluentlyanswer intraverbal questions such as ‘‘Whatgrows on your head?’’ ‘‘What grows in agarden?’’ and ‘‘What do you wear on yourhead?’’ it is usually valuable that a child canalready emit the words ‘‘grow,’’ ‘‘head,’’‘‘wear,’’ and ‘‘garden’’ as tacts and respondcorrectly to those verbal stimuli as a listener(e.g., ‘‘Can you find something thatgrows?’’). In addition, it is important thatthe child has a generalized tact and listenerrepertoire regarding items that can grow(e.g., flowers, grass, people, hair), items towear (e.g., hats, shoes, coats) and so on. Ofcourse just the ability to tact nonverbalstimuli and respond to them as a listenerdoes not necessarily result in the emergenceof intraverbal behavior. The data suggest thatthese verbal operants are functionally inde-pendent and specific training is usuallyrequired to transfer stimulus control fromnonverbal to verbal antecedents (e.g., Braam& Poling, 1982; Miguel, Petursdottir, & Carr,2005; Petursdottir & Haflioadottir, 2009).


24 MARK L. SUNDBERG and CINDY A. SUNDBERG

Perhaps the most complex aspect ofestablishing the verbal stimulus controlnecessary for intraverbal behavior is thatmultiple control is almost always involved.Skinner (1957) describes two types ofmultiple control: ‘‘(1) the strength of a singleresponse may be, and usually is, a function ofmore than one variable and (2) a singlevariable usually affects more than one re-sponse’’ (p. 227). An example of the first typeof multiple control was suggested above,where the interaction among the multipleverbal stimuli in the question, ‘‘What grows ina garden?’’ plays a role in evoking a correctresponse, while the second type of multiplecontrol is demonstrated by the behavior oflisting a variety of things that can grow. Thesetwo types of multiple control have beentermed convergent multiple control and di-vergent multiple control, respectively (Mi-chael, Palmer, & Sundberg, 2011).

Convergent multiple control can be ob-served in almost all instances of verbalbehavior. There are endless configurationsof convergent multiple control because it caninvolve any verbal or nonverbal stimulusaffecting any sense mode, including privatestimulation (e.g., auditory, visual, tactile,pain, kinesthetic), and control can be sharedwith other antecedents such as conditionedand unconditioned stimuli, motivating oper-ations, and audiences. The current studyfocuses on a special type of convergentmultiple control commonly identified as aconditional discrimination (e.g., Saunders &Spradlin, 1989; Sidman & Tailby, 1982;Spradlin, Cotter, & Baxley, 1973). Michael(2004) defined a conditional discriminationas a type of multiple control where ‘‘thenature or extent of operant control by astimulus condition depends on some otherstimulus condition’’ (p. 64). That is, onediscriminative stimulus (SD) alters the evoc-ative effect of a second stimulus in the sameantecedent event (or vice versa), and theycollectively evoke a response. For example,in standard matching-to-sample training achild is shown a sample stimulus such as apicture of a ball (stimulus 1) and asked tomatch that stimulus with a correspondingpicture (stimulus 2) located in a comparisonarray. The child is successful only when thesample stimulus alters the evocative effect ofone stimulus in the array. Specifically, the

first picture of a ball establishes the secondpicture of the ball as an SD that evokes theselection (matching) response, which is thenreinforced. Simultaneously, the other stimuliin the comparison array are established as S-deltas (selection responses are not rein-forced).

A conditional discrimination can be con-trasted with a ‘‘simple discrimination’’ wherea response is evoked by a single stimuluscondition. For example, saying ‘‘dog’’ as afunction of seeing a dog involves a singleantecedent and a single response. However,multiple control may still be involved. Astimulus may contain several parts, usuallyreferred to as a complex stimulus (e.g.,Groskreutz, Karsina, Miguel, & Groskreutz,2010; Markham & Dougher 1993; Stromer &Stromer, 1990), but still may only involve asimple discrimination. For example, the doghas a tail, paws, fur, etc., but these multiplestimuli occur together so reliably they consti-tute a single stimulus configuration requiringonly a simple discrimination and it is notnecessary to discriminate among the individ-ual parts of the dog. If the response isreinforced, it will be more likely to be evokedin the future when all or part of theconfiguration of controlling variables occursagain. Multiple simple discriminations mayalso come together later as components of aconditional discrimination (e.g., Groskreutz etal., 2010; Saunders & Spradlin, 1989). Thereare many examples of simple discriminationsin early language training such as learningechoic and imitative behaviors, tacting singlenouns and verbs, song fill-ins, word associa-tions, and performing specific actions oncommand.

However, there are many circumstanceswhere the antecedent stimuli involve multiplecomponents that do not reliably occur togeth-er, or may only come together on a singleoccasion. A correct response under thesecircumstances is typically dependent on aconditional discrimination where one stimulusalters the evocative effect of another stimulus,but neither stimulus alone is sufficient toevoke the correct response. For example, if aperson is shown an array of different dogs andasked to find the schnauzer, a correct responseis dependent on the word ‘‘schnauzer,’’establishing the picture of that particular typeof dog as an SD for selection while simulta-


INTRAVERBAL BEHAVIOR 25

neously establishing all other types of dogs inthe array as S-deltas. The word ‘‘schnauzer’’without an available array of dogs, or thepicture array of dogs without the spoken word‘‘schnauzer’’ could not individually evoke thesame response. These types of conditionaldiscriminations involve what has been termedcompound stimulus control and have beencontrasted with complex multiple controldescribed above (e.g., Groskreutz, et al.,2010; Markham & Dougher, 1993; Perez-Gonzalez & Alonso-Alvarez, 2008; Stromer,McIlvane, & Serna, 1993; Stromer & Stromer,1990).

There is an extensive and productive bodyof basic research on conditional discrimina-tions involving both humans and nonhumans,much of which is in the context of studyingstimulus equivalence relations (for reviewssee Sidman, 1994; Schrier & Thompson,1980). A majority of this research has beenconducted within a matching-to-sample prep-aration involving both visual-visual andauditory-visual discriminations and nonver-bal selection responses (Sidman, 1994). Thecurrent study sought to extend the study ofconditional discriminations to verbal operantrelations that exclusively involve compoundverbal antecedents and topography-basedintraverbal responses.

Skinner (1957) first used the term ‘‘com-pound verbal stimulus’’ (p. 76) when dis-cussing intraverbal behavior evoked bymultiple verbal stimuli in a single antecedentevent. The term ‘‘conditional discrimina-tion’’ had not yet appeared in the behavioralliterature when Skinner wrote his bookVerbal Behavior (1957), but his analysis ofthe antecedent events in this type of verbalbehavior is consistent with what is now oftenreferred to as conditional discriminationsinvolving compound stimuli (e.g., Alonso-Alvarez & Perez-Gonzalez, 2006; Axe, 2008;Perez-Gonzalez & Alonso-Alvarez, 2008).The current paper is primarily interested incompound conditional discriminations thatinvolve only verbal stimuli. In an effort toavoid the etymological sanctions of the terms‘‘compound’’ and ‘‘complex,’’ and thehistorical focus on nonverbal matching-to-sample preparations with classifications ofdiscriminations by sense mode (i.e., visual-visual, auditory-visual) rather than function,the term verbal conditional discrimination

(VCD) is suggested. A VCD can be defined astwo or more components of a verbal stimuluswhere one verbal stimulus alters the evoca-tive effect of another verbal stimulus (or viceversa) in the same antecedent event. Forexample, Catania (1998) describes an auto-clitic relation where the verbal stimulus, ‘‘Idoubt (alters the evocative effect of) thecoffee is ready’’ (p. 258), and collectivelythrough conditional discrimination, appropri-ately affects a listener’s behavior. Had thespeaker said, ‘‘I’m sure the coffee is ready’’a different response would have been evoked,again through conditional discrimination.

The current study extends Catania’s anal-ysis to situations where a verbal stimulusenters into a conditional discrimination andalters the evocative effect of a second verbalstimulus, and these two stimuli collectivelyevoke an intraverbal response. Thus, theentire relation contains conditional discrim-inations involving only verbal stimuli andverbal responses, which is the foundation foralmost all intraverbal behavior (Axe, 2008;Skinner, 1957). Verbal conditional discrim-inations can become increasingly difficult asmore verbal stimuli are added to theantecedent such as different verbal modifiers(e.g., adjectives, prepositions, pronouns, con-junctions), more complex concepts (e.g.,negation, ordinal positions, time, relativity),more complex vocabulary words and topics(e.g., ‘‘dependable,’’ ‘‘considerate,’’ ‘‘globalwarming’’), and so on. These types of verbaldiscriminations are ubiquitous in normaldiscourse and may help to explain whychildren with language delays have such adifficult time acquiring a functional intraver-bal repertoire commensurate with theirtypically developing peers.

An important contribution to the treatmentof children who fail to acquire intraverbalbehavior would be data on typically devel-oping children and the nature of theiracquisition of intraverbal responses such asanswering questions and engaging in conver-sations (e.g., Brown et al., 1969; de Villers &de Villers, 1978; Ervin-Tripp, 1970). Inaddition to the published books and researchpapers, there are 100s of different languagedevelopment charts available on the Internetand in the print media that track the variouscomponents of typical language acquisition(e.g., www.cdc.gov, www.asha.org, www.



abp.org). However, none of these chartsspecifically track intraverbal development,but most do give some examples of intra-verbal behavior. Many suggest that earlyverbal responses that would be classified asintraverbal behavior according to Skinner(1957) begin to occur around 1K to 2 yearsof age and consists of singing songs andproviding rhymes, as well as a child’s abilityto state his first name on request. Conversa-tions and answering questions are usuallyidentified as a 3 to 4 year old skill (see Ervin-Tripp, 1970 for more detailed informationregarding specific types of questions). How-ever, none of these charts provide informa-tion regarding the complexity of verbalantecedents for intraverbal behavior and asone might expect, do not identify conditionaldiscriminations as being involved in this typeof language.

Poon and Butler (1972) conducted the onlyknown study that specifically examinedincreasingly complex intraverbal behaviorwith a large number of typically developingchildren of varying ages. These authorsadministered a modified version of theintraverbal subtest of the Parsons LanguageSample (Spradlin, 1963) to 89 typicallydeveloping 5 to 7 year old children. Theauthors presented 24 intraverbal questions tothe children and scored their responses asverbal, gestural, bimodal, correct, or incor-rect. The primary goal of the study was toidentify the role of gestures in intraverbaldevelopment, but the results also demonstrat-ed several differences in the intraverbalbehavior of the participants. The resultsshowed that ‘‘age was the significant maineffect … (and) point to the possibility of adevelopmental sequence of intraverbal be-havior’’ (Poon & Butler, 1972, p. 306).

The current study is a replication andextension of Poon and Butler (1972). Thestudy sought to further examine intraverbaldevelopment, but with younger typicallydeveloping children and with children withautism. The study employed an 80-itemintraverbal subtest that was designed todetermine if there is a general sequence ofincreasingly complex verbal stimuli andintraverbal behavior, and if this sequencecould be beneficial to language assessmentand intervention programs for children withlanguage delays. The study also sought to

determine the differences in intraverbaldevelopment between typically developingchildren and those with autism.

METHOD

Participants

Thirty-nine typically developing childrenand 71 children with autism served asparticipants. The typically developing chil-dren were between the ages of 23 months and61 months, and the children with autism werebetween the ages of 35 months and 15 yearsold. Participants were recruited in a varietyof ways. Many, but not all of the typicallydeveloping children had a parent or friend ofthe family who worked with children withspecial needs (e.g., a classroom teacher,speech pathologist, behavior analyst), orwere siblings of children with special needs.The participants were drawn from severaldifferent parts of the United States andCanada (see the authors’ note). The majorityof participants were unknown to the authors.The children with autism were recruited frompublic school classrooms that the first authorconsulted with, and from colleagues who alsoworked with children with autism (see theauthors’ note). The current study representsthe third large-scale administration of the 80-question assessment tool. In total, the threeadministrations of the subtest involved 91typically developing children and 262 chil-dren with autism. However, the data from thefirst two administrations are not presented inthe current paper, but the data did contributeto extensive modifications of the intraverbalsubtest.

Setting

The typically developing children wereadministered the assessment in their ownhomes, in the homes of family friends whoparticipated in the project, or in a classroomsetting. The children with autism wereadministered the assessment in their homesor classrooms. No specific requirements wereprovided regarding the arrangement of thetest setting, but some suggestions were made(see Appendix 1). For example, it wassuggested not to conduct the whole assess-ment in one setting or in order of the items



listed, and to reinforce correct responseswhile making the process fun and feel like agame.

Intraverbal Assessment Subtest

An intraverbal assessment subtest wasdesigned with increasingly complex intraver-bal tasks (Appendix 2). There were earlierversions of the assessment tool that weregradually modified over a 5-year period as aresult of several small-scale administrationsand two large-scale administrations. The twolarge-scale administrations (Sundberg, Ro-den, Weathers, Hale, Montano, & Muhles-tein, 2006, March; Sundberg, 2006, August)were part of the field-test data for thedevelopment of the intraverbal section ofthe Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessmentand Placement Program: The VB-MAPP(Sundberg, 2008). The results from thoseadministrations helped to establish, priori-tize, and sequence the intraverbal skill areaof the VB-MAPP, and to further refine thatassessment tool. The revisions in the subtestmainly involved changing the items, chang-ing the level of the items, or modifying thespecific categories for each set of items. Theversion used in the current study (v. 5.21)was the result of these previous revisions,however some minor revisions were madeduring the course of the current study.

The assessment subtest contains 8 sets ofitems with 10 verbal stimuli in each set,resulting in a total of 80 intraverbal items.The first set contains simple intraverbalrelations such as filling in the words tocommon songs (e.g., ‘‘The itsy bitsy …’’),providing the sounds that animals make (e.g.,‘‘a kitty says …’’) and fill-in-the-blanksinvolving reinforcers (e.g., ‘‘Ready, set…’’). Each set becomes increasingly com-plex along 5 general dimensions: (1) thetransition from simple verbal stimulus con-trol to VCDs, (2) the use of the WH (orsimilar) question format in a true VCD, (3)increasing complexity of the parts of speech(moving from nouns to verbs, to adjectives,to prepositions, to pronouns, etc.), (4)increasing the complexity of the concepts(e.g., negation, relative adjectives, time,ordinal position), and (5) increasing thecomplexity of the individual vocabularywords contained in the verbal antecedents.

There were two blank spaces at the bottom ofeach set in order to include any child-specificintraverbals that might be strong in thechild’s repertoire. (However, the variousadministrators of the test rarely used thesespaces.)

Administration Instructions

Each person who administered the assess-ment received a set of instructions (seeAppendix 1). The instructions identified thegeneral goal of the assessment tool, specificsuggestions for conducting the assessment(e.g., don’t prompt responses, multiple pre-sentations of an item are acceptable, writeexactly what the child says), and the scoringinstructions.

Reliability

A second person independently scored thetranscribed intraverbal responses as corrector incorrect. IOA was assessed using thepoint-by-point agreement method for 33% ofthe participants. Agreement was calculatedby dividing the number of agreements foreach correct or incorrect response by the totalnumber of agreements plus disagreementsand multiplying by 100%. The mean agree-ment across participants was 93.4% and thescores ranged from 84% to 100%.

RESULTS

Approximately 8,500 intraverbal responseswere collected from the 110 participants andscored as correct or incorrect primarily by theauthors. Figure 1 shows the number ofcorrect intraverbal responses across the 39typically developing children. The age inmonths of each child is presented on the left yaxis and his or her specific score on thesubtest is presented on the right y axis. Thedata show that there was a general correlationbetween the age of the child and the numberof correct intraverbal responses. Not surpris-ingly, the older the child, the higher thescore. However, there was considerablevariability in the individual scores of childrenwho were similar in age.

The most interesting aspect of Figure 1 isthe sharp increase in the number of correctintraverbal responses that begins to occur for



the children who were reaching 3 years ofage. Beginning with participant 8, who was34 months old, the average scores more thandoubled compared to the average score of thechildren 31 months and younger. The 7children who were 31 months old or youngerhad an average score of 26 correct intraverbalresponses. The 9 children between the agesof 34 and 38 months old had an average scoreof 58 correct intraverbal responses.

Perhaps the most valuable information inthese data is the errors that the children made.The types of errors varied by age groups. Theyounger children tended to make errors thatconsisted of not responding to the question,pointing to a location, emitting an echoicresponse, repeating a previous response, oremitting a general response such as ‘‘things,’’‘‘stuff,’’ ‘‘huh,’’ or ‘‘yeah.’’ Some of thesechildren also had a ‘‘favorite error response’’for multiple questions (e.g., one child re-sponded ‘‘oranges’’ for 7 items, another said‘‘elephants’’ for 6 items). Older childrentended to make some of these errors, butwould be more likely to say, ‘‘I don’t know,’’

instead of not responding, pointing, or emit-ting echoic responses (although echoic re-sponding did occur for several older children).The most common errors for the olderchildren were those that showed some degreeof simple discrimination, but poor or absentVCD control, especially with more complexparts of speech and content (e.g., ‘‘What doyou smell with?’’ evoked ‘‘Poopies’’). Ta-ble 1 contains a sample of the types of errorsmade by the typically developing children atsix different age levels, and more detail aboutthe nature of their errors is presented below.

The 3 children in the 2-year-old group hada mean score of 26 correct responses. Theywere able to do song fill-ins, simple associ-ations, fill-in-the blanks, and some limitedanswers to WH questions. However, theywere unable to provide correct responses toitems that contained VCDs or more complexparts of speech. These children frequentlyemitted echoic responses to many of thequestions that they could not answer.

The 4 children in the 2K-year-old grouphad a mean score of 26.6 (this score was


Figure 1. The age in months is presented on the left y axis and the scores on the intraverbal subtest ispresented on the right y axis for typically developing children. A line is provided at three-years-of-age toprovide a frame of reference.



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reduced by one extremely low score). Overall,the 2K-year-old children demonstrated stron-ger intraverbal behavior, but their erroranalysis revealed that the intraverbal controlwas usually restricted to simple discrimina-tions involving the last or prominent singleword in a sentence (e.g., ‘‘What grows onyour head?’’ evoked ‘‘shoulders’’). Thesechildren were also unable to correctly respondto questions involving VCDs, and frequentlyemitted echoic responses or a general re-sponse (e.g., ‘‘things’’) to the more complexquestions.

The 9 children in the 3-year-old group hada mean score of 58 and were beginning tocorrectly respond to questions involvingVCDs (e.g., ‘‘Where do you find wheels?’’evoked ‘‘The bottom of a car.’’). However,errors involving VCDs containing morecomplex parts of speech were still prevalent(e.g., ‘‘What’s under a house?’’ evoked‘‘roof’’). Children at this age had troublewith WH questions that contained preposi-tions, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, nega-tion, time concepts, and especially combina-tions of these. None of the 3-year-olds couldprovide only their last names when asked.Four of the children emitted their first names(i.e., ‘‘What is your last name?’’ evoked‘‘Noah,’’ ‘‘Gabriella,’’ ‘‘Sofia,’’ and‘‘Neil’’), 4 children emitted their full names,and 1 child did not respond to the question.

The 7 children in the 3K-year-old grouphad a mean score of 62.9 correct intraverbalresponses. They made fewer errors, but werestill having difficulty with VCDs involvingprepositions, adjectives, negation, time con-cepts, etc. These children often said, ‘‘I don’tknow’’ when they could not answer thequestion, but they still emitted echoicresponses on occasion.

The intraverbal repertoire was quite strongfor most of the 4-year-old children. The 10children in this group had a mean score of69.7 on the assessment. They were clearlyable to emit responses involving VCDs (e.g.,‘‘What’s above a house?’’ evoked ‘‘Anairplane and stuff that’s on the roof’’).However, they too had difficulty withprepositions, various adjectives, negation,and time concepts.

The 6 children in the 5-year-old group hada lower mean (65.7) primarily due to 1 lowscore, but most of the 5 year olds were able

to correctly respond to almost all of thequestions containing VCDs. They still how-ever demonstrated weaknesses with preposi-tions, adjectives, negation, ordinal positions,and time concepts within a VCD (e.g., noneof these children could answer ‘‘What daycomes before Tuesday?’’, most responded‘‘Wednesday’’).

The results of the children with autism arepresented in Figure 2. These data show agreater variability in the scores among the 71children than demonstrated by the typicallydeveloping children. In general, there was agradually increasing trend in scores with age,but some of the best performances were withthe younger children. However, the partici-pants in this study do not represent a randomselection of children with autism. Most of theparticipants came from programs that fol-lowed a behavioral approach to languageassessment and intervention, and if appropri-ate, had been receiving intraverbal training aspart of their daily programs (see the authors’note).

As with the typically developing children,the analysis of errors provided useful infor-mation. Rote intraverbal and echoic respond-ing was more frequent for the children withautism, as was the occurrences of negativebehavior during the assessment, especiallywith questions involving the more complexVCDs. These types of problems were moreprevalent for the older children. The mostinteresting results from the children withautism were that they tended to make thesame types of errors made by typicallydeveloping children who scored at theirlevel. That is, children who had a similartotal score on the assessment made the sametypes of errors throughout the assessmentregardless of age or handicapping condition(Table 2). For example, when asked, ‘‘Whatshape are wheels?’’ A typically developingchild with a total score of 40 responded‘‘triangles’’ while a child with autism whoalso scored 40 responded ‘‘cars.’’ Both errorsrepresent simple intraverbal stimulus control,but not the necessary VCD needed to answerthe question correctly.

DISCUSSION

The current study supports the conclusionby Poon and Butler (1972) that there is a



general sequence of intraverbal acquisition.The data suggest that this sequence isprimarily a function of the complexity ofthe verbal stimulus control involved in agiven intraverbal relation. Typically devel-oping children between the ages of 23 and31 months of age were only able to emitintraverbal responses controlled by simpleforms of verbal stimulus control, and wereunable to respond to those involving verbalconditional discriminations (VCDs). It wasnot until approximately 3 years of age thattypically developing children were consis-tently able to emit these types of verbaldiscriminations. These data suggest that thesubstantial growth in the intraverbal reper-toires of typically developing children thatoccurs between 2 and 3 years of age may bepartially related to the acquisition of respons-es controlled by VCDs.

The error analysis demonstrated at least 5ways that verbal antecedents become morecomplex: (1) as suggested above, the transi-tion from simple verbal stimulus control to

VCDs; (2) the use of the WH (and similar)question format in a true VCD; (3) theinclusion of more complex parts of speech(and words) in a VCD (i.e., prepositions,adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions); (4) theinclusion of more complex concepts in aVCD (e.g., negation, relative adjectives, time,ordinal positions); and (5), the inclusion ofmore complex vocabulary words in a VCD.There was a clear correlation between the ageof a child and his or her success with thesemore complex discriminations. While thedata do provide support for Poon andButler’s (1972) conclusion that ‘‘age wasthe significant main effect’’ (p. 306) forintraverbal development for typically devel-oping children, there was wide variabilitybetween individual children at the same age.

The results from the 71 children withautism supported the results obtained fromthe typically developing children in a varietyof ways, but also provided additional insighton intraverbal development. An error analy-sis revealed that children with autism dem-


Figure 2. The age in months is presented on the left y axis and the scores on the intraverbal subtest ispresented on the right y axis for children with autism.


onstrated the same difficulty with increas-ingly complex verbal stimuli describedabove, and made errors similar to those madeby typically developing children who ob-tained similar scores on the 80-item intra-verbal assessment, regardless of age. Thus,the overall score on the assessment was abetter predictor of intraverbal skills anddeficits than the age or the handicappingcondition of the child. However, it isimportant to note that the targeted populationof children with autism came from programsthat specifically provided intraverbal instruc-tion, which is likely responsible for the factthat several of these children had near perfectscores. It would be interesting and importantto examine the scoring patterns and errorsdemonstrated by children with autism whohave not received formal intraverbal instruc-tion.

The results of this study also have severalimplications for intraverbal assessment andintervention for children and adults withlanguage delays. In order to design anappropriate intraverbal intervention program

it is critical to identify a child’s existingintraverbal skills (and any barriers to acqui-sition). The original intraverbal assessmenttool developed by Spradlin (1963) contained29 items of increasing complexity and servedas the foundation for all other intraverbalassessments that followed (e.g., Braam,Sundberg, & Stafford, 1978, May; Partington& Sundberg, 1998; Sundberg, 1983, 1990,2008; Sundberg, Ray, Braam, Stafford,Reuber, & Braam, 1979). The 80-itemsubtest presented in the current study contin-ues the work started by Spradlin by providinga quick sample of an intraverbal repertoire.This revised sequence of intraverbal com-plexity represents a data-based intraverbalassessment tool (Sundberg, 2008) that corre-sponds with typical developmental mile-stones and is conceptually consistent withSkinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behaviorand basic principles of behavior.

Future research involving the assessmentsubtest and especially VCDs could be con-ducted with other populations as well, suchas children who are identified ‘‘at risk,’’ or


Table 2Samples of the Errors Made By Typically Developing Children and Children With Autism

Whose Total Scores Were in the Same Bracket

Assessmenttotal score Intraverbal question

Typicallydeveloping child

Child withautism

20–29 What can fly? ‘‘All gone shirt’’ ‘‘Water’’What can you sing? ‘‘Yes’’ No responseWhat’s outside? ‘‘Outside’’ ‘‘Outside’’

30–39 What are some colors? ‘‘1, 2, 3’’ ‘‘Coloring’’Why do you use a Band-Aid? ‘‘On my finger’’ ‘‘Happens’’Where do you take a bath? ‘‘Mommy and daddy’’ ‘‘With toys’’

40–49 What grows outside? ‘‘Sand’’ ‘‘Playground’’What shape are wheels? ‘‘Triangle’’ ‘‘Cars’’What do you wear on your head? ‘‘A ear’’ ‘‘Boo boo’’

50–59 What do you eat with? ‘‘Cheese’’ ‘‘Pizza’’What color are wheels? ‘‘Circle’’ ‘‘Red’’Name some clothing. ‘‘Clothing’’ ‘‘Clothing’’

60–69 What’s in a balloon? ‘‘It pops’’ ‘‘String’’What makes you sad? ‘‘Cry’’ ‘‘Cry’’What grows on your head? ‘‘A plant’’ ‘‘Hats’’

70–79 What day comes before Tuesday? ‘‘Wednesday’’ ‘‘Wednesday’’What’s your last name? Gave full name Gave full nameWhat number is between 6 and 8? ‘‘9’’ ‘‘9’’


are demonstrating other types of languagedelays (e.g., expressive language disorder).The current version of the subtest wasdeveloped for children, but the items couldbe modified to suit different populations. Forexample, a modified version of the assess-ment could be valuable for identifying andameliorating the intraverbal difficulties ex-perienced by members of the adult orgeriatric population (e.g., Gross, Fuqua, &Merritt, 2010, May). In addition, individualswith traumatic brain injury often faceintraverbal problems (e.g., Sundberg, SanJuan, Dawdy, & Arguelles, 1990) and couldbenefit from a modified version of theassessment, as might those who are learninga second language (e.g., Petursdottir &Haflioadottir, 2009). The current intraverbalsubtest, along with a careful analysis oferrors related to VCDs, could also be used asa dependent variable for measuring intraver-bal change for any individual who isexperiencing intraverbal delays.

The current data also have several implica-tions for the development of an intraverbalintervention program for children with lan-guage delays. Perhaps the most valuablecontribution is that the acquisition of intra-verbal behavior by typically developingchildren can serve as a guide for sequencingintraverbal tasks, and for developing Individ-ual Educational Programs (IEPs). The datasuggest programmers should avoid attempts toteach advanced intraverbals such as thosecontaining VCDs, modifiers, and complexconcepts until a child has the necessaryprerequisite verbal skills. It is speculated thatthe failure to appreciate the complexity ofVCDs is a major cause for the development ofrote intraverbal responding and/or echolaliaoften demonstrated by children with autism orother developmental disabilities. For example,before a child is presented with WH questionscontaining adjectives and prepositions heshould have a solid history of simple verbaldiscriminations, noun and verb intraverbaldiscriminations, and general verbal condition-al discrimination training. Further empiricalinvestigation of these variables could substan-tially improve existing intraverbal interven-tion programs.

Another contribution of the current data tolanguage intervention programs is the obser-vation that intraverbal development takes a

long time for typically developing children.This study shows that children seem to stayat the simple verbal discrimination level formany months, before progressing to earlyforms of VCDs. These same children mayemit thousands of mand, tact, and listenerresponses per day (Hart & Risley, 1995;Moerk, 1986), yet still are unable to emitmore complex intraverbal behavior. Furtherresearch on this process could be quitebeneficial to determining how fast oneshould progress through the various levelsof intraverbal training. The implication isthat a thorough analysis of a child’s intra-verbal levels and targeted intraverbal tasks beregularly conducted. Programmers should becareful about increasing the complexity ofthe verbal antecedent too quickly or movingfrom the nonverbal context too soon (tact andlistener discriminations). Also, the erroranalysis used in the current study could bea beneficial tool for monitoring a child’sintraverbal development and adjusting theprogram accordingly.

Future research on the role of motivation(MOs) as an additional antecedent variable inintraverbal interactions could also be quiteproductive (Sundberg & Michael, 2001). Inearly intraverbal training the use of MOs(convergent multiple control) seems to facil-itate intraverbal development when a re-sponse is established as part mand and partintraverbal (e.g., ‘‘Ready, set, …’’). Motiva-tion clearly plays a role in more advancedintraverbal behavior as is demonstrated byindividuals who emit strong intraverbalbehavior regarding topics that they are highlyinterested in, but weak intraverbals regardingless interesting topics. There are also anumber of other thematic lines of researchthat could be conducted in the use of variousforms of multiple control for intraverbaldevelopment (see Chapters 9–11 of Skinner,1957 for many examples).

The primary antecedent variables in mostintraverbal behavior involve VCDs, whichare a type of multiple control (Skinner,1957). However, very little research has beenconducted on VCDs and topography-basedintraverbal responses (Axe, 2008). Directionfor future research in this area can come fromthe extensive body of work on selection-based conditional discriminations, especiallythose involving compound conditional dis-



criminations (e.g., Alonso-Alvarez & Perez-Gonzalez, 2006; Markham & Dougher, 1993;Perez-Gonzalez & Alonso-Alvarez, 2008;Saunders & Spradlin, 1989; Stromer &Stromer, 1990). For example, Perez-Gonza-lez and Alonso-Alvarez, (2008) conducted aVCD analog study designed to establishdiscriminations containing 4 interchangeablestimuli. The study involved arbitrary stimulibased on the verbal analog, ‘‘Select a Frenchpainter,’’ ‘‘Select a French writer,’’ ‘‘Selecta Spanish painter,’’ and ‘‘Select a Spanishwriter.’’ The results demonstrated ‘‘thatlearning the four single-sample conditionaldiscriminations is sufficient for some personsto demonstrate the emergence of the com-pound-sample conditional discriminations’’(p. 95). However, other persons required‘‘experience with a compound-sample con-ditional discrimination … for the emergenceof the compound-sample conditional dis-crimination’’ (p. 95). The authors concludedwith the suggestion that

in order for children with autism toanswer questions with two relevantstimuli … the present study suggeststhat they should learn first to answerquestions with only one relevant stimu-lus… . It also suggests they should learnthe relational [autoclitic] frame corre-sponding to two-stimuli questions’’(p. 99).

These data support the previous suggestionthat establishing an intraverbal repertoire forchildren with language delays involvesseveral prerequisite skills. For example, ifthe goal is to teach a child to intraverballyanswer (in a non rote manner) the questions,‘‘Can you name a red fruit?’’ ‘‘Can youname a red vegetable?’’ ‘‘Can you name ayellow fruit?’’ and ‘‘Can you name a yellowvegetable?’’ the tact and listener skillsinvolving red, yellow, fruit, and vegetableshould be individually established, general-ized, and discriminated from other classes ofstimuli. In addition, divergent intraverbalcontrol should be individually taught foreach word and intraverbal response classesestablished (i.e., Perez-Gonzalez & Alonso-Alvarez, 2008). The compound verbal stim-uli could then be brought together for the firsttime in a listener VCD task that provides anonverbal prompt (e.g., a listener respondingby function, feature, and class task). For

example, the four verbal combinations of thetwo adjectives and two nouns (e.g., ‘‘Canyou find a red fruit?’’ ‘‘Can you find ayellow vegetable?’’) can be presented alongwith an array of comparison stimuli thatincludes the target stimulus and a variety ofsimilar nonverbal items (e.g., green fruit, redmeat, yellow bus, orange vegetable). Thenext step is to fade out the nonverbalstimulus, and transfer stimulus control to aslightly modified verbal stimulus (i.e., ‘‘canyou name …’’), thus establishing an intra-verbal relation. Many variations of thisprocedure are possible and could generate athematic line of research that would be ofgreat value in developing intraverbal trainingprograms.

Intraverbal behavior is often hard toacquire because of the inherent complexityof verbal stimulus control. More often thannot, many of the various verbal antecedentsfor daily intraverbal behavior do not reliablyoccur together, or may only come together ona single occasion. Children with autism whomay thrive on sameness and routine may findthe constantly changing and often novelconfigurations of verbal stimulus controlquite difficult. The current data suggest thatthe intraverbal repertoires of typically devel-oping children can provide a guide forintraverbal assessment and intervention forindividuals with language delays. In addition,the data suggest that verbal conditionaldiscriminations are ubiquitous and mandato-ry in daily intraverbal relations and should bea major focus for the future study ofintraverbal behavior.

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APPENDIX 1

Instructions for Conducting the VB-MAPP Intraverbal Assessment Subtest

Dear participant:We have been working on improving the

intraverbal curriculum for children withlanguage delays and request your help inobtaining information on children’s respons-es to the 80 items contained in this subtest.The information will give us some baselinedata and guide us in sequencing the types ofintraverbal tasks presented to language de-layed children. We need data on bothtypically developing children (between 12and 48 months of age) and children with anytype of language delay.

There are 8 sets of intraverbal items on thissubtest. Each set contains 10 questions andtwo individualized supplemental items (iden-tified on the forms as ‘‘other’’) that aremeant to replace one or two of the questionsthat the child has no exposure to the specificwords or topics. The purpose of the supple-mental items is to give a child credit for anintraverbal response that s/he might be ableto emit on a topic more familiar to him/herthat is commensurate with the group beingtested (if the child does not get all 10correct). For example, a child may not beable to intraverbally respond to one of thesong fill-ins if they don’t know the songlisted in set 1, but s/he may be able to fill-in adifferent song. The assessor could include upto 2 individual items for each set, but thechild’s total score for each set still cannotexceed 10 (i.e., if the child gets all 10 listeditems correct, the individualized items willnot increase the score). Please make sure to

fill out the information on the top of theform. Last names are optional (or use the firstletter only if two children have the same firstname).

Here are some specific suggestions forconducting the assessment.

N Make it fun for the child by making it

seem like a game

N Reinforce correct responses

N Don’t correct or punish incorrect respons-

es (i.e., ‘‘no’’)

N Don’t prompt responding in any way (this

is a baseline test)

N There is no time limit, take your time

N Spread out the assessment over a variety

of activities (avoid presenting all 80

questions in a row, or in one setting)

N Intersperse the test items with other verbal

and nonverbal activities

N Mix up the items for each category (e.g., a

song fill-in, then a ‘‘where’’ question)

N Repeat the question two or three times if

necessary

N Re-phrase minor words if necessary (e.g.,

‘‘What animal has stripes’’ can be re-

phrased to ‘‘Can you tell me an animal

with stripes’’). Please note any changes to

the question on the form

Scoring instructions

N Fill in the general information at the top of

the form

N Write the child’s exact response in the

blank space to the right of the test item

N Don’t worry about scoring, we will score

the test, but feel free to score it if you

want

N Please email or fax us back the filled out

forms by May 11th if you can




Appendix 2The Intraverbal Assessment Subtest

Child’s name: Tester:Date of birth: Testing date (s):Diagnosis if any: Total score____ (give a 0 or 1

for each item)

Group 1: Animal sounds & songs fill-ins) Score Write the exact responsegiven by the child

A kitty says...Twinkle, twinkle, little...Ready, set …The wheels on the bus go...Rock-a-bye...A dog says...Peek-a…The itsy bitsy...Head, shoulders, knees and...Happy birthday to...Other:Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 2 (name, fill-ins, associations)

What is your name?You brush your...Shoes and...You ride a...You flush the...You sit on a...You eat…One, two...You wash your...You sleep in a…Other:Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 3 (Simple What questions) Score Write the exact responsegiven by the child

What can you drink?What can fly?What are some numbers?What can you sing?What’s your favorite movie?What are some colors?What do you read?What is outside?What’s in a kitchen?



Table , cont.

What are some animals?Other:Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 4 (Simple Who, Where, & How old?)

Who is your teacher?Where do you wash you hands?Who lives on a farm?Where is the refrigerator?Who drives the car?Where do you take a bath?How old are you?Where are the trees?Who do you see on TV?Why do you use a bandaid?Other:Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 5 (Categories, function, features) Score Write the exact responsegiven by the child

What shape are wheels?What grows outside?What can sting you?What do you do with with a spoon?What can you push?Where do you find wheels?What do you smell with?Name some clothing.What’s something that’s sharp?What color are wheels?Other:Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 6 (adjectives, prepositions, adverbs)

What do you wear on your head?What do you eat with?What animal moves real slow?What’s above a house?What do you write on?What’s in a house?What are some hot things?What grows on your head?What is under a boat?Where do you eat?What’s under a house?Other:

Appendix 2, cont.



Table , cont.

Other:Total points (10 points maximum):

Group 7 (Multiple part questions) Score Write the exact responsegiven by the child

What makes you sad?What animal has a long neck?Tell me something that is not a food.What helps a flower grow?What is something you can’t wear?What do you do with money?What number is between 6 and 8?What’s in a balloon?What’s your last name?What’s something that is sticky?OtherOtherTotal points (10 points maximum):

Group 8 (Multiple part questions)

Where do you put your dirty clothes?What do you take to a birthday party?What day is today?What do you see in the country?What day comes before Tuesday?Why do people wear glasses?When do we set the table?How is a car different from a bike?How do you know if someone is sick?What did you do today in school?OtherOtherTotal points (10 points maximum):

Appendix 2, cont.


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