RESUMO
Skinner's (1957) classification of mand responses has spawned decades of research related to teaching individuals with developmental disabilities. However, few studies have evaluated how to teach individuals with autism to progress from simple to more complex mands for desired items and activities. The present study used a treatment package consisting of errorless teaching, differential reinforcement, and systematic decision rules to increase the number of words per mand utterance used by 6 children with autism. Daily probes were conducted in the absence of prompting and differential reinforcement throughout every stage of the treatment. Results showed that all children showed significant developmental gains in the mean length of utterances. Increased rates of manding, increased emission of mand frames, and decreased instances of indicating responses (i.e., pointing, reaching) in the absence of mands were also observed. Implications regarding the feasibility of intensive mand training in practice are discussed.
RESUMO
While task clarification, goal setting, feedback, and behavioral skills training (BST) are well-supported methods for performance improvement, there is no standardized approach to supervising aspiring Board Certified Behavior Analysts® (BCBAs®) that specifies how such practices should be used within a comprehensive supervision system, namely for supervising those who are still accruing experience hours for the purpose of becoming board certified. This article outlines a systematic approach to BCBA supervision and provides a set of tools that supervisors can use to ensure that they are engaging in empirically based supervision practices.
