Mand Training within the PaTTAN

Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior

Analysis Supports:
A Training Manual
(Version 6-7-10)

Written by
Michael Miklos, BCBA
and
Amiris DiPuglia, BCBA

This manual was developed as part of the efforts of the PaTTAN Autism Initiative,
Applied Behavior Analysis Supports. The PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior
Analysis Supports is funded through a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of
Education, Bureau of Special Education. The Project is a collaborative effort of The PA
Bureau of Special Education, The Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance
Network, and Tuscarora Intermediate Unit 11.

This manual could not have been completed without the support and guidance of Dr. Bill
Galbraith, BCBA and Debi Namey-Finarelli, our leaders in the PA VB Project and also
our friends. We also want to extend our thanks to Dr. Vince Carbone, Dr. Mark Sundberg,
and Dr. Brian Iwata, who in addition to generously sharing their training materials,
protocols and data forms, also provided us with the conceptual and technical background
necessary for developing this manual. We are also indebted to Dr. Francis Warkomski,
former Director of the Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network
(PaTTAN), and Angela Kirby-Wehr, current Director of PaTTAN, who have provided a
steady source of advocacy for our efforts in promoting data-based decision making and
evidence based practices in the special education process.
Thanks to these people who have also contributed significantly to these efforts:
Mary Barbera, Sue Cartwright, Lori Chamberlain, Ben Fowler, Pam Fowler, Linda
Franchock, Rebekah Houck, Kelly Gansarski, Ireland Maher, Tammy Maher, Katrina
Mellott, Nicole Newark, John Ragsdale, Kristin Robson, Stephanie Ruby, Katie Staub,
Katie Ulrich, and Sharon Zamrin

Table of Contents
Introduction and Overview..........................................................................................................

Purpose........................................................................................................................................
Overview of Mand Training........................................................................................................
What is a mand?.......................................................................................................................
The Operant Analysis..................................................................................................................
The Verbal Operants and Some Related Operant Behaviors...................................................
The Mand: A More Detailed Description..................................................................................
Motivative Operations...............................................................................................................
Unlearned or Unconditioned Motivative Operations............................................................
Learned or Conditioned Motivative Operations....................................................................
Discriminative Stimuli and Motivative Operations...............................................................
Motivative Operations and the Mand....................................................................................
The Benefits of Mand Training..................................................................................................
Teaching Skills Needed for Effective Mand Training...............................................................
An Overview of Basic Mand Training Procedures....................................................................
Identify Strong Reinforcers.......................................................................................................
Conducting a Preference Assessment........................................................................................
Preference interview and checklist........................................................................................
Observation............................................................................................................................
Formal Stimulus Preference Assessments.............................................................................
Conditioning New Reinforcers..................................................................................................
Selecting the Response Form.....................................................................................................
Pairing Social Interactions with the Delivery of Reinforcement...............................................
Teaching the First Few Mands...................................................................................................
Selecting Targets for Mand Training.........................................................................................
Steps in Teaching a Specific Mand............................................................................................
Prompt Procedures.....................................................................................................................
Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Vocal Mands..........................................................................
Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Signed Mands........................................................................
Some Considerations in Prompting the First Mands.................................................................
Mand Transfer Trials as a Time Delay Process.........................................................................
Error Correction and Reducing Scrolled Responses.................................................................
When to Do Mand Training.......................................................................................................
The Importance of Interspersing Mand Trials...........................................................................
Preparing the Environment for Mand Training.........................................................................
Establishing a Broad Mand Repertoire......................................................................................
Instructional Considerations Regarding Eye Contact and Obtaining an Audience...................
Generalizing Mands across Conditions, People, and Exemplars..............................................
Specific Protocols for Extending the Mand Repertoire.............................................................
Extending the Mand Repertoire: Skill Sequence.......................................................................
Peer To Peer Manding................................................................................................................
Mands for Missing Items...........................................................................................................
Development of the Pure Mand.................................................................................................
Mands for Negation...................................................................................................................
Teaching Mands for Attention...................................................................................................
Expanding Length of Utterance: A Note on Autoclitics and the Mand.....................................
Multiple Component Mand Protocol.........................................................................................

Mands for Information Protocol................................................................................................

The Defective Mand: Troubleshooting Mand Training.............................................................
Reducing Repetitive/Inappropriate Mands................................................................................
Appendix I: Data Systems and Data Forms...............................................................................
Appendix 2: A Brief Review of Some Conceptual Issues Related to the Mand........................
Glossary.....................................................................................................................................
Sign Language Resources........................................................................................................
Some Useful Texts in the Study of Applied Behavior Analysis..............................................
References................................................................................................................................

Introduction and Overview

The PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior Analysis Supports is a collaborative
effort to expand provision of effective science-based interventions for children with
autism in the PA Public Education system.
Collaborating participants include the Tuscarora Intermediate Unit #11 who administers
the Project, local school agencies as the providers of direct service to children, the
Pennsylvania Training and Technical Assistance Network (PaTTAN) as a source of
technical advice, and importantly, parents as partners. The PA VB Project is funded
through the Pennsylvania Department of Education, Bureau of Special Education.
The PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior Analysis Supports was initiated in the
2002/2003 school year in two classrooms at the Luzerne County Intermediate Unit 18 as
a result of the efforts of a parent support group in Wilkes-Barre, PA. Since its inception,
the Project has continued to grow. In the 2009-2010 school year the Project had expanded
service to 102 classrooms serving 612 students.
Independent of the project, Lancaster-Lebanon IU 13 had developed Early Intervention
(preschool) classes using an Applied Behavior Analytic (ABA) |Verbal Behavior (VB)
model of instruction. Many of their procedures were incorporated into the PaTTAN
Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior Analysis Supports design.
Simultaneously, other educational agencies demonstrated a growing interest in ABA and
VB for public special education programs that serve children with autism, in part due to
advocacy of parent groups and an increased public awareness of ABA/VB resulting from
workshops provided by various providers of ABA/VB services
The PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior Analysis Supports is committed to
applying the theoretical constructs of B. F. Skinners model of verbal behavior and
current verbal behavior research to design language interventions across participating
sites. The Project seeks to expand provision of effective science-based interventions for
children with autism in the PA Public Education/Special Education system, and to
establish a core set of classrooms incorporating Applied Behavior Analytic-based
treatments.
Participating sites receive consultation from Project consultants on a regular basis. There
are a total of 25 Project consultants serving participating sites. 9 of the Project
consultants are parents of children with Autism. 21 consultants are Board Certified
Behavior Analysts; 3 are Board Certified Associate Behavior Analysts) Participating
educational agencies also provide consultative support to the classes. In 2009-2010, the
project was supported by 52 Internal Coaches (school district and IU personnel; 24 of
which are either BCBA or BCaBA with 8 in process of obtaining BCBA or BCaBA.) The
internal coaches receive ongoing training through the Project and work collaboratively
4

with Project consultants so that independent implementation of applied behavior analytic

programming can occur in their districts or IUs.

Purpose
This training will address how to teach children to ask for what they want. It will attempt
to provide simple descriptions of teaching procedures. The complexity of the topic, the
development of human language, will require us to present a good bit of technical
terminology. We will make consistent efforts to explain such terms in common language
when they are first discussed. For the convenience of the reader, a glossary is provided
later in this training manual. Please access the glossary as needed.
This training manual includes a DVD with video demonstrations of the concepts and
procedures described. The videos can be used for trainings on the topics presented.
Remember that team work is critical in mand training. Because so many complex
decisions need to be made in this process, all people working with a student should
present a consistent approach to teaching the mand based on a careful analysis of what
the student can do, what they are motivated to do and the situations in which they will
need to make requests.
This manual includes an expanded review of the content of the training video as well as
other supplemental materials such as references, activities, charts, and data sheets.
We hope these training materials are helpful to you in your efforts to promote the
acquisition of language for the students you serve.

Overview of Mand Training

Mand training is a critical skill that has often been overlooked when designing language
intervention programs for children with autism and other developmental disabilities.
This guidebook will help define what a mand is, how it is similar to terms such as asking,
requesting, demanding, commanding and so on, and how it uniquely describes a
relationship between the conditions in a childs environment and the childs tendency to
initiate interactions with other people. The main purpose, however, is to help you develop
the skills needed to teach students how to use mands to make their lives better on a daily
basis.
Although there are certain aspects of mand training which are simple and straightforward,
assisting students with autism and other developmental delays in the acquisition of a
broadly functional mand repertoire is often a challenge. It requires instructors who are

skilled in establishing student motivation, effective prompt and prompt fading, and the
application of a dynamic teaching protocol.

What is a mand?
The mand is one type of verbal behavior.
B. F. Skinner wrote the book, Verbal Behavior in 1957. The book describes the basic
model we use to define the mand and other forms of functional communication from a
behavioral perspective.
Skinners model of verbal behavior includes an analysis of the events that occur before
and after one speaks and how those events alter the future frequency of what is often
termed communication. He defines verbal behavior as behavior that is maintained
through the specific actions of listener. The listener needs to have learned how to
specifically respond to the speaker. Verbal behavior follows the same principles of other
behavior, in other words our tendency to speak and the timing of when we speak are
strongly related to the events that occur before and after we speak (antecedents and
consequences.)
What follows next is a review of the basic principles of behavior that are important both
for non-verbal and verbal behavior.

The Operant Analysis

Behavioral models describe the reasons we do what we do in terms of three relations:
what happens before a behavior occurs, what are the characteristics of the behavior and
what happens immediately after the behavior. For most behaviors of concern to educators
and parents, behavior whose probability of future occurrence is dependent upon how the
environment changes following the behavior is called operant behavior. Here is a chart
that lists some key concepts related to operant behavior. A working knowledge of each
concept on this chart is a key part of developing an adequate skill set for teaching mands.
ANTECEDENT

BEHAVIOR

CONSEQUENCE

Motivative Operation

Response

Reinforcement

(UMO; CMO-t; CMO-

(Dimensions:

(Positive Social, Positive

r; CMO-s)

topography; temporal;

Automatic and

Stimulus

magnitude; location)
No Response

Negative)
Punishment

(Discriminative,

(Type I and II)

Neutral, Delta)
Prompts

Schedule of

(a procedural use of

Reinforcement

discriminative stimuli)

(Extinction; continuous;
VR; FR; VI; FI)

We will review this chart in sequence from antecedent through consequence. This
discussion will provide only a cursory overview of the principles of behavior analysis.
Readers are encouraged to further develop their skills in the concepts of behavior analysis
by reading any one of several high quality texts on applied behavior analysis (Cooper,
Heron& Heward, 2007; Michael, 2004; Catania, 2006, Alberto &Troutman, 2002.)
Prior to behavior, events happen which alter the probability of the behavior occurring,
these events are called motivative operations. Motivative operations describe how the
value of certain consequences can change depending on prevailing conditions. We will
describe motivative operations in detail later in this training. Also in the period just
before a behavior occurs, events may be present which signal that certain consequences
are more likely or available, these antecedent events are called discriminative stimuli.
Other events can signal that certain consequences are less likely. These are called delta
stimuli and finally there may be events that have no effect on behavior, these are called
neutral stimuli. One other set of events that can occur in the antecedent condition are
prompts. Prompts are events that are likely to promote the occurrence of a particular
behavior and are usually planned to make the behavior occur under certain conditions:
8

prompts are ancillary or planned events that are used for teaching purposes. In order for a
behavior to be learned under the control of naturally occurring discriminative stimuli,
prompts must be faded as soon as possible.
Behavior is the movements of an organism, in our case the movements of the students or
teachers, in their environment. It is important for teachers and parents, who are concerned
about helping students learn, to remember that behaviors are to be defined in observable
terms. To accomplish this, physical dimensions of behavior are defined, such as what
parts of the body move, how fast or forceful they move, what direction they move in,
how often they occur or how soon after certain events they occur.
The probability of any set or class of behaviors occurring again is determined to a large
degree by the past consequences of the behavior. Events that increase the likelihood of
future behavior are termed reinforcers. If a stimulus is added to the environment (for
instance, the student is given something), and that event increases the future probability
of behavior, the event is termed a positive reinforcer. If a stimulus is taken away from the
environment (for instance, an unpreferred task) and that event increases the likelihood of
some behavior (such as various escape behaviors), then the event is termed a negative
reinforcer. If any event occurring after a behavior decreases the future probability of the
behavior, the event is termed punishment.
Reinforcers delivered by people are termed social reinforcement; events that serve as
reinforcement and are not dependent upon people for their delivery are termed automatic
reinforcement. Reinforcing stimuli do not need to occur after every instance of a
particular type of behavior in order to effect the behaviors future probability. Events that
occur every time a behavior occurs and have reinforcing qualities are said to be delivered
on a continuous schedule of reinforcement. Continuous schedules of reinforcement are
associated with more rapid rates of learning. Behaviors that are reinforced intermittently
will, however, occur more consistently and will be less likely to stop occurring soon after
reinforcement procedures are discontinued. A behavior which no longer results in
reinforcing consequences is said to be on an extinction schedule of reinforcement and
eventually, the frequency of such behaviors will fade or cease. Extinction schedules may
have the effect of evoking behavior that may differ in magnitude or variation in
topography of behavior before responding fades.
Again, this brief description of the operant analysis is not meant to help you fully
understand this complex analysis, it is provided as a brief review. Keep in mind that those
who have developed a strong working knowledge of the operant analysis have acquired
powerful tools that are critical in designing, delivering and evaluating effective teaching
procedures.

Verbal Behavior
As you read this guidebook, keep in mind that we, consistent with the conceptual
framework provided by B. F. Skinner (1957), are proposing that language is behavior. As
behavior, the principles described in the operant analysis are very relevant to verbal
behavior. The mand is operant behavior. Other types of verbal behavior have been
reviewed in detail in a previous training video and guidebook produced by the PA VB
Project and will not be repeated here in detail. In 1947 B.F. Skinner outlined in a series of
lectures, a conceptual model for classifying language by its function. The William James
Lectures delivered at Harvard University by Skinner were later synthesized into the book
Verbal Behavior which was published in 1957. For your review, here is a chart
summarizing the classification of verbal behavior and related terms:
Verbal Operant
Mand

Tact

Intraverbal

Antecedent

Behavior

Consequence

Motivative

Verbal behavior

Direct reinforcement

Operation ( wants

(says cookie)

(gets cookie)

cookie)
Sensory Stimuli

Verbal behavior

Non-specific

(sees or smells

(says cookie)

reinforcement

cookie)

(gets praised, for

Verbal stimulus

Verbal behavior

instance)
Non-specific

(Someone

(says cookie)

reinforcement

says:What do you

(gets praised, for

eat?)
Verbal Stimulus

Verbal behavior:

instance)
Non-specific

(someone says

repeats all or part of

reinforcement

cookie)

antecedent

(gets praised, for

Listener

Verbal stimulus

(says cookie)
Non-verbal behavior

instance)
Non-specific

responding/

(someone says

(child touches cookie)

reinforcement

receptive

touch cookie)*

Echoic

(actually not a

(gets praised, for

instance)

verbal operant)

10

The Verbal Operants and Some Related Operant Behaviors

In this section we will review how one can classify what is said based on
environmental variables in the antecedent and consequent conditions. Remember that
verbal behavior can include vocal responses, but also includes sign language, gestures,
writing, and various forms of augmentative communication. The analysis presented here
describes the basic concepts on which a functional analysis of language can be built.
The Mand
The first verbal operant to be discussed is the mand. Some common terms for the mand
are request, ask, command, and/or demand. The mand develops early in children.
By asking for what one wants and then as a result, getting it, conditions directly improve
for the speaker. Mand training is a central part of verbal behavior interventions. Mand
training is more effectively done in the natural environment where there are more
opportunities for contact with a variety of reinforcers.
Please refer to the chart presented above to see a summary of the antecedent-behaviorconsequence relations for the mand. In the antecedent condition, the child wants
something. In behavior analysis wanting is referred to as a Motivative Operation.
Motivative operations are conditions in the environment that temporarily alter the value
of reinforcers; and, therefore, increase the likelihood of behaviors that have produced
those reinforcers in the past. For example, someone who has not eaten in a while will be
more likely to do things that have resulted in getting food; whereas, a person who has
eaten a big meal will be less likely to do things that result in getting food.
The consequence for the mand is direct reinforcement. In other words, the speaker gets
what they want, or has an undesirable condition removed. The reinforcer correlates
directly with the motivative operation. Asking questions, calling out for attention, making
choices, or saying stop that are all mands.
Although mands often result in tangible reinforcement, mands can also be reinforced by
events such as obtaining attention or information. The mand will be covered in detail in
later sections of this manual.

View video A1
The Tact
Some common terms for emitting a tact are labeling or naming. Please take a minute to
review the chart presented earlier regarding the antecedent and consequences for tact
behavior. In the antecedent condition for the tact, there is always a stimulus present that

11

comes into contact with one of our senses. In other words, one can see, hear, smell,
feel or taste something that is followed by a specific verbal response.
Some examples of tacts are: saying cookie when you see a cookie; saying cookie
when you smell a cookie; or, saying cookie when you taste a cookie. When we label
actions or features of objects, we are also emitting tacts. We can also tact properties of
our internal status such as labeling pain, fear, joy, and so forth.
Unlike the mand, tacts do not result in specific reinforcement such as obtaining what has
been labeled. The consequence for the tact is non-specific reinforcement. Non-specific
reinforcement can include events such as praise, head nods, or other forms of social
attention.
So, when one says cookie when seeing a cookie, it may be followed by thats right, it
is a cookie. Reinforcement may be as subtle as a turn of the head from a listener or as
tangible as receiving a bit of food. Non-specific reinforcement may also be of an
automatic nature. In other words by saying a word, the speaker may be reinforced by
making some other response more likely (for instance, when asked to label a color such
as blue, a child may say blue...Blues Clues! an expression associated with an
enjoyable activity; for adults, saying a word may be reinforced by allowing the person to
match aspects of the environment to the word, for instance saying keys as one finds
keys that have been misplaced (see Lowenkron, 2004.)

View video A2
The Echoic
Echoic behavior is repeating what someone else says. Again, the operant relations for
echoic behavior can be seen in the chart presented earlier. The antecedent for the echoic
is someone elses vocal behavior and the response is also vocal. The response duplicates
features of what is said. Echoic behavior is useful for teaching other forms of verbal
behavior such as mands, tacts, and intraverbals. Echoic behavior, according to B.F.
Skinner (1957), occurs only as a vocal response with an acoustical response product.
Repeating sign language is more accurately referred to as imitation or mimetic behavior
(see Imitation description below.)
The consequence for echoic behavior is non-specific reinforcement. The response does
not specify its reinforcement.

View video A3
Intraverbal
Conversational responses and answering questions are common terms used to describe
intraverbal behavior. Again, review the chart presented above. Like echoic behavior, the
antecedent for intraverbal behavior is a verbal stimulus, although not necessarily vocal.
12

The response is also verbal behavior that can be in the same form (i.e., both vocal or both
sign) as the antecedent or in a different form (vocal antecedent, signed response, etc.).
For instance, answering a question is intraverbal behavior, whether the question is asked
in sign language, in writing, or in vocal form and whether it is answered in sign language,
writing, or vocally. The intraverbal response does not duplicate the antecedent verbal
behavior. In other words, the response is different than what is said in the antecedent.
Filling in responses, completing phrases, word associations, and answering questions are
all forms of intraverbal behavior.
The consequence for the intraverbal is also non-specific reinforcement.

View video A4

Listener responding (not usually a verbal operant in Skinners analysis)

Listener responding generally involves people following directions. A common name for
listener responding is receptive language; however, the term receptive language may not
imply a behavioral response (the person may hear language without responding in any
discernable manner.) The antecedent for listener responding is someone elses verbal
behavior but the response is a non-verbal response (it does not necessarily require an
audience or listener.) For example, standing up following someone saying or signing
stand up is a listener response. The listeners response does not include vocal talking,
sign language or any other form of verbal behavior. Other examples of listener response
or receptive behavior include touching a picture or object when it is named, looking at an
item when it is named, or following simple one-step directions or multiple component
directions.
The consequence for listener responding is also non-specific reinforcement.

View video A5
Match to Sample (not a verbal operant in Skinners analysis)
The ability to compare similarities and differences is a critical skill needed for most
academic learning. An early skill in the process of learning sameness is being able to
match objects that have similar properties. Although matching skills are not technically
verbal behavior, being able to make comparisons will assist learners in developing verbal
skills. To effectively match items, students need to develop scanning skills and the ability
to discriminate items based on their shared properties. This is similar to verbal responses
where discrimination is required.
For match to sample skills the student is presented with a stimulus (usually an object or
picture) and is generally given a verbal direction to match or put with same. The
13

student then responds by placing the stimulus near or on another item that shares relevant
characteristics. Match to sample responses always involve a conditional discrimination
(i.e., in the presence of one particular stimulus, responding to some other stimulus will be
reinforced: when shown a ball and told match, the student will be reinforced for
selecting another ball.)
The consequence for match to sample behavior is also non-specific reinforcement.

View video A6
Imitation (Mimetic) (Not a verbal operant in Skinners analysis.)
Motor imitation involves copying someone elses movements. The chart reviewing the
operant analysis for imitation skills is presented above. Like echoic behavior, imitation
responses duplicate an aspect of the antecedent stimulus. However, the antecedent
condition is not a vocal verbal response but rather specific movements. Developing the
ability to imitate others allows students to learn indirectly by copying a model.
The consequence for motor imitation is also non-specific reinforcement.

View video A7
Multiple Control of Verbal Behavior
Most naturally occurring verbal behavior is multiply controlled. This means that several
types of conditions may occur simultaneously before people verbally respond (i.e., in the
antecedent condition there may be sensory stimuli and verbal stimuli.) Please see the
charts presented above for a review of two examples of verbal behavior under the control
of multiple antecedent stimuli.
Knowledge of the individual verbal operants provides us with a way to assess complex
verbal behavior. Students with autism often fail to use a word for a variety of purposes.
They may learn to use the word as a tact but not as a mand. Therefore, when the student
responds to a complex antecedent stimulus, it is difficult to determine whether they are
responding to one or several of the antecedent conditions. We must determine if
responding can be emitted under each of the antecedent conditions independent of the
others. If a learner only asks to pet a dog when the dog is present and the adult says
what do you want? we will need to determine if the child asks to pet the dog only when
the dog is present (so the question is a tact), only when asked, What do you want? (No
dog present with the response controlled through an intraverbal process) and also in the
condition when the dog is not present and a question has not been asked (i.e., to mand for
an item that is not immediately present). The learner may be able to say dog when they
see a dog, but not when they want to pet a dog. The learner may be able to ask for dog
when someone asks him to but not when they want to do so when not asked.
Discriminating under which conditions the student is likely to say or not say dog will
14

help us know what skills the student needs to be taught in order for the student to use the
word dog across a variety of conditions.
In other words, when a student is presented with a complex antecedent condition it is
hard to tell what aspect of that antecedent condition controls the response. A student with
a good ability to tact may say soda in the presence of a can of soda with the result of
being given the soda. The response may appear to be a mand; however, it may only be
controlled by the presence of the can of soda as a tact.
We can systematically fade multiple control in order to help the student learn how to use
the same word for many functions. This is important because in order to be a competent
speaker, people need to be able to use words for a variety of reasons.
Children also need to learn to use language for more precise functions: they will need to
tell about how an object is used, to describe various features of the object or situation,
and to demonstrate the ability to classify objects and concepts based upon their relation to
other objects and concepts. Likewise, students will need to modify primary verbal
responses using adverbs, adjectives, prepositions and pronouns. Teaching the secondary
verbal operants (autoclitics) can be incorporated into the intensive teaching process.
These processes have implications for mand training.

15

The Mand: A More Detailed Description

In short, the mand makes things better for the speaker. The way things get better for the
speaker will vary depending on how the person asks for what they want, how much they
want it, and the timing of when they make the request.
A mand as we have noted occurs when a person wants something and is the result of a
history of that person getting what they wanted in the past when they asked for it.
Here are some examples of mands and how they benefit the speaker:

Mands Benefit the Speaker

Asking for a pen and getting it when you need to write takes away the
problem of not being able to write when one has to sign a paper.

Saying where are my keys? may provide information regarding the

location of the keys. The information will ultimately help the person find
the misplaced keys.

Saying really? or Oh, yeah in a conversation may serve to keep your

partner talking.

Asking for an umbrella and getting it when you need it to cover from the
rain.

View videos A8 through A11

B. F. Skinner (1957) noted that: a mand may be defined as a verbal operant in which the
response is reinforced by characteristic consequences and is therefore under the
functional control of relevant conditions of deprivation or aversive stimulation. A mand
is verbal behavior that is controlled by motivative variables and specifies its
reinforcement. Remember that the mand may function to specify a wide range of
reinforcement. Asking for things is only one type of mand. One can also emit mands that
result in other forms of direct reinforcement, such as obtaining social attention, obtaining
verbal information and obtaining a certain type of emotional response form a listener.

16

Several Types of Mand Behavior: Some Examples

Mand for item present vocal response
Mand for item present sign language response
Mand for item present with selection based response (i.e.
Picture Exchange Communication System; Frost & Bondy,
1994)
Mand for item not present
Mand for attention
Mand for action
Mand for information
Mand for continued verbal behavior
View video A12

Motivative Operations
Without motivation, most behavior will not occur. All operant behavior involves
motivation. There are multiple examples of motivational effects in everyday life:

One does not reach for doorknobs unless there is a reason to open the door.
People will not reach in their wallets until they need money, a credit card,
identification or some other items within the wallet.
Rats do not move much in a maze if they are well-fed.

On the other hand, events can occur which make behavior more likely:

People run to open doors when someone shouts fire.

Needing to make a purchase will lead people to reach in their wallets.
A rat that has not been fed will be very likely to explore a maze.

View videos B1-B3

All mands have one thing in common: in the antecedent condition, there is a Motivative
Operation in place. In other words, the individual wants something. Unless motivation
is in place for the learner, you cannot do mand training.
17

In 1950, Drs. Keller and Schoenfield introduced the term establishing operations to
describe events in the environment that establish the value of other events. The term
establishing operation means that changes in the environment can affect how much a
person wants something and how likely they are to do something to have that event
happen. Because the value of events can be altered so that the person either wants more
of the event or less of the event (sometimes called an abolishing operation), in 2004 Dr.
Jack Michael and others (Polling, Michael, Laraway, 2004) suggested the term
Establishing Operation be changed to Motivative Operation.
Remember that motivation is in the environment and not in the student. In much of the
educational and psychological literature, motivation is discussed as intrinsic to the
individual and not necessarily related to events occurring outside of the persons skin.
People will say he doesnt want it or thats not interesting to him. Such descriptions
do not allow teachers to explore variables in the environment that may be more directly
associated with the individuals tendency to make requests or engage in other behaviors.
Motivative Operations have two basic effects. Both effects are temporary and change
with the passage of time.
Motivative Operations
Value Altering Effects
Frequency Altering Effects
Establishes the value of stimuli: events or Evokes any behaviors that in the past
items that will serve as reinforcers

have resulted in obtaining the events or

Abolishes the value of stimuli: events or

items
Abates any behavior that in the past have

items that will not serve as reinforcers

resulted in obtaining the events or items

The first effect is altering the value of reinforcers (value altering effect). This means that
the person will be more likely to want something.
The second effect is increasing the likelihood of behaviors that have produced those
reinforcers in the past (evocative effect). This means that the person will be more likely
to do something to get what they want.
When planning to train a student to make requests, we need to consider both aspects of
motivation. Instructors will need to insure that the child wants something and also insure
that the student is likely to do something to get it. The instructor must know what the
student wants and must know what the student is to do to get it. In many cases the
instructor will have to alter the environment to get the student to want something.
Technically speaking, both the reinforcer establishing and the evocative effects are
important considerations in the mand training process. Both aspects of the motivative
operation have particular implications for those engaged in teaching students to mand.
18

One cannot begin mand training unless a known stimulus is established as a reinforcer.
The procedures to establish events and items as reinforcers involve environmental
manipulations that often are discussed in terms of deprivation. Mand trainers must set up
conditions that make events or items valuable.
Keep in mind that when an event becomes valuable to a student they can do many
different things to make it more likely that they will get what they want. This can include
asking with words that are acceptable to others, asking with a demanding tone of voice,
or even engaging in temper tantrums or other problem behaviors. In mand training, the
instructor must work to be sure that only certain behaviors will result in the student
getting what they want.
Behavior that can be selected for reinforcement as a result of the evocative effect of MOs
is central to mand training. Once a reinforcer is established as valuable, the individual
will emit any behavior that results in a high probability of obtaining the reinforcer. The
central mission of mand training, once adequate reinforcement is established, is to
differentially reinforce certain responses while simultaneously putting on extinction other
responses. The instructor makes sure inappropriate mands do not get reinforced and
appropriate mands do. The evocative effect provides the variation which allows the mand
trainer to engage in pruning the bush of possible responses.

View video B4
The basic principles of behavior suggest that some operant behaviors are maintained by
access to unlearned reinforcers such as food, drink, air, warmth, and so forth. Other
behaviors are maintained by access to reinforcers that have been learned in the course of
the individuals life experience. The motivation for unlearned and learned reinforcers
differs in how they are established.

Unlearned or Unconditioned Motivative Operations

Motivative Operations for reinforcers like food and drink (unlearned reinforcers) involve
two principles, satiation and deprivation. Deprivation has an establishing effect on
reinforcer value and will tend to evoke the behaviors associated with the reinforcer.
Some examples of these phenomena include:

After being under water in a pool for more than a few seconds, the body becomes
deprived of air (oxygen). The effect of oxygen deprivation is to establish air as a
reinforcer. Likewise the effect of oxygen deprivation is to evoke behaviors that
result in obtaining air, such as swimming to the surface.

After not eating for several hours, food is likely established as a reinforcer. The
person who is food deprived will be more likely to engage in behaviors that result

19

in obtaining food, such as walking to the refrigerator, driving to a restaurant, or

asking someone else for food.

When one eats salty pretzels (causing water deprivation), drinking water becomes
of value and will likely lead to engagement in any behavior that has produced
water in the past.

View videos B5 through B7

On the other hand having enough of something to eat or drink leads to satiation. Satiation
has an abolishing effect on reinforcer value. This means that the person will be less likely
to do things to obtain that reinforcer.
Some examples of satiation include:
Drinking sufficient water will eventually lead to satiation and a reduction in the
value of water as a reinforcer. Therefore the person will be less likely to ask for
water.
For a child who has just eaten lunch, food will be of less value and he or she will
be less likely to ask for food.

View video B8
It is probably important to teach mands for food or drink at times when the student has
not had food or drink for some period of time. Likewise this principle implies that more
mands will be emitted if the food or drink is delivered in small increments rather than all
at once (more generous portions may lead to more rapid satiation.) Of course, the use of
food and drink as reinforcers must be done with care. It is not ethical to deny individuals
their basic needs. However, training mands at times when students are naturally hungry is
appropriate as long as attention is paid to nutritional issues and is not contra-indicated by
any parental or cultural preference or dietary factor.

Learned or Conditioned Motivative Operations

Not all motivation works by satiation and deprivation. Some motivation is related to a
persons learning history and not to their biology. These are called learned motivative
operations.
MOs for learned reinforcers are slightly more complex because their occurrence is not
dependent on the direct effects of deprivation; however, they provide a much greater
potential pool of events or items that can be used for mand training.

20

Transitive Motivative Operations

Transitive motivative operations (CMO-T) involve an increase in value of an event
because it makes available some other event. The presentation of one stimulus makes
some other stimulus more valuable.
For example, the value of having a pen is increased if someone hands you a piece of
paper and says write your name. Deprivation is generally not relevant in relation to
transitive MOs in a biological sense. Prior to being asked to write, the person could not
be described as being pen deprived. No matter how long a person is without a pen, the
pen will not be valuable until conditions occur that make it useful. In the example, it is
only when the verbal stimulus write your name occurs that the value of having a pen is
established. There are many examples of CMO-Ts that occur within a classroom or at
home. When presented with a bottle of bubbles, the value of having the bottle opened will
increase (hence, the opportunity to teach the child to request open) Being presented
with a doll house with no furniture may increase the likelihood of asking for the furniture.

View video B9 and B10

Reflexive Motivative Operations
A second kind of learned motivative operation is a reflexive motivative operation (CMOR). CMO-Rs often play a large part in instances of challenging behaviors. For the CMOR the presentation of a stimulus makes the removal of that stimulus valuable. CMO-Rs
can be thought of as warning signals. They are learned because the individual has had
repeated experience with the warning signal occurring just before something bad
happens. The CMO-R serves to establish any event as a reinforcer that terminates the
worsening condition and will evoke any behavior that has been so reinforced (Michael,
1993).
For example, when instruction has been repeatedly correlated with worsening conditions
(such as tasks being too hard, correlation with removal of ongoing reinforcers, or a failure
to adequately reinforce cooperation), any events that signal the beginning of instruction
will serve as CMO-Rs. The approach of a teacher, the teachers voice, specific verbal
instruction, and instructional materials all may result in evoking escape behaviors such as
tantrums, running away, or even aggression. The teacher in this case is the CMO-R.

View video B11

Establishing instructors as sources of reinforcement through the mand process can serve
to reduce or eliminate the effects of CMO-Rs. The teacher, rather than serving as a
warning signal, becomes a signal for the opportunity for things to get better for the
student.

21

In certain circumstances when CMO-Rs are in effect, it is an opportunity to teach

appropriate mands for escape such as saying no or stop. Teaching procedures for
mands for the removal of an event must be carefully planned. In other words the
procedure must be implemented at a time when the instructor is willing to allow escape.

Discriminative Stimuli and Motivative Operations

At this point it is also important to discuss the distinction between a discriminative
stimulus (SD) and a motivative operation. The MO affects the value of reinforcers where
as SDs are antecedent stimuli that are correlated with the availability of reinforcement.
For instance, in the case of a CMO-R, the presentation of an instructional task by the
teacher does not make its removal available (the student may not be able to escape from a
particular task); however, it does make removal of the task more valuable and will evoke
behaviors that have been effective in the past in avoiding the task. For a transitive MO,
such as the case where a bowl of cereal is presented without a spoon, the increased value
of the spoon does not make that spoon more available. Needing a spoon is different from
being able to obtain a spoon. Wanting a spoon does not mean there will be any spoons
available. Likewise, being hungry doesnt mean food is available; being cold does not
mean that a heater is nearby. However, in the case of hunger, a restaurant sign might be
an SD for food availability; sight of a coat might be an Sd for putting it on.

Motivative Operations and the Mand

MOs are of significant value in mand training because they can be contrived and
captured. One can contrive an MO by manipulating the environment in ways that will
make certain outcomes more valuable. This can be done, for example, by controlling
access to reinforcement while asking the child to do something that requires obtaining the
reinforcer. The value of having a spoon may be increased if a child is given a bowl of
pudding without the spoon. One can capture a transitive MO by providing an opportunity
to access reinforcement when the child naturally needs the reinforcer in order to access
some other reinforcer. For example, the value of having a door opened may increase on
the occasion when the child is motivated to play outdoors. Motivative operations for
unlearned reinforcers can also be contrived (planning deprivation) or captured (teaching
after a period of deprivation).
Here are some other examples of contriving an MO:
Giving the child a bottle of water with a tight lid when the child is thirsty.
Giving the child a bowl of cereal with no spoon.
Giving the child a toy that requires batteries but withholding the batteries
Briefly turning on his or her favorite video.
Giving a bit of his or her favorite snack to another child.
22

Use of an interrupted chain procedure: give the child a task to do that involves a
series of steps but withhold the materials needed to complete at least one step
(have the child do a puzzle but withhold one piece).

View videos B12 through B17

Here are some other examples of capturing an MO:
Teaching mands for food at snack or at lunch.
Having the child ask for shoes before going out to play.
Encouraging the child to ask for the remote at the time a favorite show is on.

View videos B18-B20

23

The Benefits of Mand Training

Mand training is a central focus of instruction for many programs that utilize the
principles of applied behavior analysis. There are many reasons why this is so.
The following chart summarizes some of the benefits of mand training.

The Benefits of Mand Training

1. Mands have been said to be the first type of verbal behavior acquired by
children.
2. Mands help the student control their environment.
3. Mand training makes social interaction more valuable.
4. The focus on motivation in manding and developing new reinforcers may
serve to reduce the value of repetitive/stereotyped actions.
5. Mand training may assist in developing the value of communication and thus
spur the acquisition of the other verbal operants.
6. Mand training makes social interaction more valuable.
7. It is relatively easy to do because you are using the childs own motivation as
a tool.

1. Mands have been said to be the first type of verbal behavior acquired by children.
From early in development, mand behavior helps the infant control their environment.
Early mands can include events such as:

A baby crying when hungry and then being fed

A baby being tired, crying and then being rocked to sleep.
As infants mature, they learn from interactions with their parents and other people that
certain behaviors result in specific consequences. Subtle differences in the type of cry
emitted as the baby is hungry may result in an increased frequency of a certain type of
crying if such cries are reinforced by the baby being fed. Another type of cry may be
shaped to control the tendency of the parents to hold the baby. Eventually the
differentiated responses to more discrete events will lead to rather complex patterns of
behavior. A coo may result in playful interaction; making sounds like those made by the
24

mother may result in more playful tickles; saying ba may result in someone giving the
infant a bottle. Eventually vocalizations in the form of spoken words begin to help the
child control their social environment. Saying tickle gets the infant a tickle, saying
bah-dul gets the child a bottle. The child learns to say words that result in being given
things or attention. Saying words under certain conditions, then, results in direct
reinforcement.
It makes sense to focus on mand training early in programming because mands occur
early in the developmental sequence of behavior-environment relations. If children
naturally develop the ability to mand early in life as a result of such environmentbehavior relations, it is likely they should be taught to mand early in planned
programming for children in which such a repertoire fails to develop.
2. Mands help the student control their environment.
For children with skill deficits related to communicative competence, often problem
behaviors serve as mands. This is true for children presenting autism as well. It is
important to teach appropriate mands in order to replace any inappropriate behaviors
that may serve as a mand.
Often children who are taught to ask for what they want show a marked decrease in the
frequency of problem behaviors. Here is a graph showing the change in the occurrence
of aggressive behaviors as a result of mand training for a student with autism who
received services in a class served by the PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior
Analysis Supports:

25

3. Mand training makes social interaction more valuable

For children with autism, the value of social interaction may not be established.
Children with autism often show little interest in other people. They may not
initiate social interactions as often as other children. Mand behavior is generally
maintained by the delivery of a specific reinforcer. The delivery of the reinforcer
is the result of the behavior of a listener. It is by definition, social.
If an adult provides a child with some preferred event, the child learns to seek out
that adult. As the result of mand training the adult becomes a stimulus associated
with improving conditions. Technically, the adult has become a conditioned
reinforcer. The process of establishing listeners as conditioned reinforcers is
central to mand training. When a neutral stimulus (the adult in this case) is paired
with a stimulus that is already an effective reinforcer (whatever the adult delivers
as result of the mand), the neutral stimulus will become effective as a reinforcer.

26

Pairing means the two stimuli occur simultaneously or close in time. The
delivery of the reinforcer by a person makes that person a conditioned reinforcer.
Here is an example of the pairing process. If a child likes to eat pieces of apple
and an adult gives the child apple pieces with no demands, the adult is likely to be
conditioned as a reinforcer: the child will seek out the adult in order to get pieces
of apple. If the adult then learns that the child also likes having bubbles blown,
and again freely blows bubbles at the child, the adults status as a generalized
conditioned reinforcer will be furthered established.
Soon the child will seek out the adult regularly because the adult is associated
with the availability of good things or improving conditions. The greater the
variety and quality of reinforcers delivered, the more valuable the adult becomes
to the child. This process happens without planning for most young children, but
will often need to be carefully planned for children with autism.
As adults become conditioned reinforcers, the rate at which the child initiates
interactions with them increases. Thus the act of conditioning adults and peers as
reinforcers through mand training establishes a value for social interactions.
4. The focus on motivation in manding and developing new reinforcers may
serve to reduce the value of repetitive/stereotyped actions
Another defining characteristic of students who present with autism is the
tendency to engage in repetitive or stereotyped patterns of activity. From a
behavioral model, such behavior is not usually social in nature. The child will
rock or spin in place. The rocking and spinning is apparently fun for the child. It
produces its own reinforcement and does not require the action of another person.
Such behavior is said to be maintained through automatic reinforcement. In
common terms, the child engages in the behavior because it feels good.
By learning to ask others for what they want in conditions wherein a teacher
captures and contrives motivation, the student is able to access a variety of
reinforcers. We are thus able to establish a wider range of interests that compete
with the enjoyment of stereotypical behaviors. As a result, the value of social
interaction and other reinforcers increases and the value of repetitive solitary
behaviors may decrease.
5. Mand training may assist in developing the value of communication and
thus spur the acquisition of the other verbal operants.
When a child learns to ask for many things they want, they may in certain cases,
also learn to name things or to respond to the things when they are named by
someone else. Mand training may be indirectly valuable in the process of teaching
a child to use language for many functions. Through acquiring a few mands, a
student may learn the value of verbal behavior for other functions.
Communication in and of itself may become valuable. If we fail to teach manding

27

early, it may be more difficult to directly teach tacts and intraverbals because the
value of verbal behavior may not be established. Remember that the mand is the
only verbal operant that directly benefits the speaker.
6. Mands are an integral part of complex verbal behavior: they are a major
component of conversation.
When considering mands, one should remember that mands can occur for a wide
range of reinforcers. Mands for information and mands for attention are important
components of conversational interactions. Many conversations begin with a
mand.

An example of mands as they may occur in a conversation

1. conversant 1: What did you do last night? (mand for information)
2. conversant 2: I went with my son to see that new fantasy film.
3. conversant 1: Was it good? (mand for information)
4. conversant 2: I liked it but my son found certain parts a bit scary.
5. conversant 1: Really? (mand for more verbal behavior)
6. conversant 2: Yes, some of the dark magic stuff was too much, but he did like
the flying wizards.
7. conversant 1: I havent seen the movie yet.
8 conversant 2: Oh, I think you should go, you seem to like that kind of stuff
(mand for action)
And so on.

Fully half of the statements in the above conversation included mands. If students
are to become skilled at conversing they will need to develop the ability to use
conversational mands.

7. It is relatively easy to do because you are using the childs own motivation
as a tool.
It makes sense that the child would be more motivated to participate in a process
that is intrinsically tied to their own immediate preferences.

28

This is not to say that teaching a child to effectively make requests is not
challenging.
The fact that mands are controlled by the childs interests and motivation reduces
the need for instructors to plan arbitrary means of keeping the child engaged. If
the instructor has identified reinforcers that are currently effective for the child,
both the content of instruction and the motivation have been identified.
Remember that teaching the other verbal operants requires developing arbitrary,
non-specific motivation.

Teaching Skills Needed for Effective Mand

Training
One can accomplish training mand skills in some children through employing some
rather simple procedures. Of course most of us have learned to ask for what we want
through informal interactions with our parents and others at a very early age. No one set
out to teach us to mand. Most infants acquire mands with no formal training. However,
for children who present deficits in mand acquisition, special teaching which employs a
careful analysis of several variables may be required. Teaching students with autism to
use mands effectively may require a fairly complex set of instructional behaviors.
Teachers who are involved in the instruction of mand skills will perform best if they have
acquired an in-depth knowledge of basic verbal behavior and advanced verbal behavior.
Teachers will need to know how to differentiate mands from other forms of verbal
behavior. It is also important to be able to identify sources of control (antecedents and
consequences) related to specific verbal behavior. This means being able to determine
events that occur just prior to the child speaking (e.g. was there some stimulus present
that evoked the behavior or did the behavior follow from conditions of deprivation?) This
means the teacher should be able to tell if a behavior is under the control of a
discriminative stimulus or under the control of a motivative operation or, as is most often
the case, under conditions of multiple control (both SDs and MO present.)
Those who are involved in the mand training process, then, need to have a wide
background in the basic tool set of behavior analysis. The behavioral principles needed
by teachers to effectively teach mands to children with autism include:

29

Behavior Analysis Skills Needed by Teachers to Effectively

Teach Mands

Stimulus control procedures (SD and MOs)

Prompting and prompt fading

Shaping

Differential reinforcement

Data management and data based decision making

Functional analysis of non-verbal and verbal behavior

Instructional control

Instructional design

Contriving and capturing motivation

Transfer of technology: ability to train others through guided practice, etc

When teaching some children, an in-depth knowledge of the behavioral principles may
not be necessary. However, in order to problem solve and detect reasons for absent or
defective mand patterns, someone involved with the childs program will need to have
such skills in their repertoire.
The teaching of mands is a dynamic process. Teachers need to be alert to subtle changes
in student behavior. They need to be able to discriminate the behaviors that indicate that
an item or activity has value or has lost its value. Manipulating the environment to
promote such motivation is an essential skill. Mand training requires that students have
fun with this process. The act of making instruction fun for the student may involve
significant effort on the part of the instructor. Teaching mands will involve teacher
stamina. One cannot teach mands through a passive approach, an enthusiastic approach is
often required, especially when working with students who may not have many known
reinforcers. Sometimes, mand training can be a physically exhausting process.

30

An Overview of Basic Mand Training

Procedures
Lets look at the steps that are basic to the mand training process.

Mand Training in a Nutshell

Identify strong motivators

Select response form child will use to mand

Pair staff with delivery of reinforcement

Teach when motivation is strong (MO)

Pair delivery of reinforcement with mand form (vocal word and

sign)

Prompt child to use mand form

Fade prompts so the mand is spontaneous

Teach appropriate sequence of mand forms

Use data based decision making to adjust mand programming

An Example of the Steps in Mand Training for an Early

Learner
1. Establish Motivation: Teacher presents student with a sit and spin (contrives MO:
spins it, etc.)
2. Pair: Teacher delivers reinforcer with model (pairing trial)
3. Prompt: Teacher pauses (time delay), prompts sign for spin, delivers spin
4. Fades Prompts: Teacher again pauses (time delay), student signs spin, delivers
spin

31

An Example of Use of a Transitive Motivative Operation to

Teach A Mand to A Vocal Student
Day 1
1. Establish Motivation: teacher tells student time to watch Dora (or some such
show)
2. Prompt: holds remote control says ask for the remote.; student says, remote,
please
Day 2
1. Establish Motivation: teacher tells student it is Dora time.
2. Prompt: holds remote, no verbal prompt; student asks for remote (teacher not
holding it, out of sight)
Day 3
1. Establish Motivation: teacher tells student time to watch Dora
2. No remote present, no verbal prompt; student asks for the remote

View video B21

Identify Strong Reinforcers

A critical component of mand training involves selecting the items and/or events that will
be used as targets. It is important to choose reinforcers carefully. But first we have to
make sure that there are a variety of items and events that can serve as reinforcers.

Basic methods for determining reinforcers to be used in mand

training

Preference inventory

Observations

Structured preference assessment

32

If preference assessments do not yield a sufficient bank of possible reinforcers, we will

then need to condition additional events and items as reinforcers. Conditioning
reinforcers will be discussed later.

Conducting a Preference Assessment

Preference interview and checklist
In order to begin determining what may serve as reinforcement for a student, it will be
wise to seek out the opinion of people who are familiar with the childs behavior and
interests. Remember that when we first conduct a preference assessment we do not know
if preferred items will serve as reinforcers. We can only identify reinforcers when we see
how presentation of the item or event alters the frequency of the behavior it follows. Our
hope is that what we identify as preferences will indeed later serve as reinforcers that can
be used to teach mand behavior.
A preference assessment can be accomplished by asking in an interview what items are
preferred by the individual or by having a person familiar with the individual complete a
written preference inventory.
Common preference inventories usually assess a range of possible items and activities a
student enjoys across a variety of categories. The inventory can be administered through
an interview or having them fill out the checklist.

Categories Commonly Included on Preference Assessments

Consumable items such as food and drinks

Tangible items such as various toys and materials
Activities that involve movement
Games
Electronic media such as TV, computer
Various forms of social interaction
Music
Preferred dramatic themes and characters

33

Remember that no matter how thorough of a preference assessment is completed, there

may be certain events that can serve as reinforcers that are not represented on the
inventory. In many circumstances it will be prudent to explore the effectiveness of events
not included on the inventory as reinforcers.

Preference Inventories and Interviews

Benefits
1. Interviewee has wide range of
experiences with individual
2. Can sample a broad range of possible
reinforcers
3. Easy to use
4. Allows for quick interpretation

Limitations
1. Need to rely on having an interviewee available
2. Verbal reports are prone to error; what people say
can be biased by many factors
3. Historical reports of preferences may not predict
what is currently valuable to the student
4. Preferences reports will need to be verified through
behavioral observation

5. Can sample preferences for items and

events that may not be available at the time
for direct assessment

Observation
A second way of determining what items and events will serve as reinforcement is
through direct observation.
You can structure an observation of a childs preference by recording how often the child
approaches various items, how quickly he approaches the item once it is seen, and how
long he remains engaged with the item. During such observations one should note how
the item was presented to the student and any situational variables that might have
influenced the childs response to the item such variables related to motivation (i.e.,
deprivation, presentation of other stimuli that made the item more valuable, etc.)

Preference Observations
Benefits
1. Allows observation of naturally
occurring stimuli
2. Can provide information on the students
preferences for items already available in
the environment
3. The environment can be planned to
include the presence of a variety of familiar

Limitations
1. May not provide an opportunity to
determine preference for a range of items
2. Novel items that may serve as
reinforcement need to be planned.
3. Student engagement with one or few
items may prevent an assessment of

34

and novel stimuli

4. May be easy to accomplish

preference for stimuli that are less valuable

only in comparison to highly preferred
items.
4. To obtain a more thorough assessment of
preferences, lengthy observations across a
wide range of settings may be necessary

5. Allows for quick interpretation

6. Allows for assessment of activities as
well as tangible items

Formal Stimulus Preference Assessments

There will be cases when we cannot determine from an interview or observation which
items may serve as reinforcers. In such circumstances we will need to further structure
the stimulus preference assessment by using procedures to systematically present stimuli
and carefully note the students response.
There are several basic ways to accomplish a stimulus preference assessment. These
techniques share a common method in that they rely on determining if a child will
approach or use an object when it is presented. They include:
presenting one object to the student at a time
presenting two objects to the student at a time (forced choice format)
and presenting multiple objects to the student at a time
These different formats provide different kinds of information about the students
preferences.
The single item presentation allows us to tell whether that item by itself without
comparison to other items is valuable.
The forced choice format allows us to make multiple comparisons of which items
are preferred in relation to others and to eventually identify a hierarchy of
preferences.
The multiple object format allows us to determine which of many items available
at one time will be valuable
Note that several data sheets with instructions for completing the various types of
preference assessments are included in the appendices of this manual.

View video C1

Preference Assessments
Benefits
1. Can assess response to a wide range of
stimuli
2. Various formats of assessment allow for

Limitations
1. Requires organization of materials
2. Planning requires consideration of

35

determining value of individual items,

relative value of items in comparison to
other items, and a hierarchy of preference
3. Can be done relatively quickly
4. This process is best for use with food
and other tangible items (toys)
5. Very brief, informal assessment of
preference can be used throughout
instruction as a check of strength of
motivative operation.
5. Is a direct assessment in relation to
specific stimuli; not dependent
upon verbal report

motivative variables; unless completed

repeatedly, results may reflect fleeting
preference for items
3. Criteria will need to be established to
judge strength of response
4. May not effectively assess preference for
activities
5. Some preference assessment models
require that the student have a strong
selection response established

Conditioning New Reinforcers

During the course of our day to day lives we ask for many different things. We may ask
the person at a lunch counter for a cup of coffee, we ask our children to get ready for
school, we may ask the dog to sit down, and we may even ask inanimate objects to do
things like telling our computer to open when a program is slow in responding. The
reason we ask for so many different things is because we, like most people, have a variety
of items and events that serve as reinforcers. Many things are valuable to us depending on
our circumstances.
Many children with autism have an extremely limited range of items and events that
serve as reinforcers. Because these children may not be reinforced by a wide range of
experiences, there may be a general tendency for them to respond to their environment
with less variability in behavior. According to all descriptions of autism this is a defining
characteristic of the disorder. If there is not a wide pool of reinforcers available to a
student, the number of mands that can be taught will be quite limited. In order to teach a
diverse mand repertoire, effort must be given to extending the number of events that
serve as reinforcers.
As indicated in basic behavioral research, the stimuli that serve as reinforcement do not
remain static. Some reinforcers will remain strong, others fade in strength and some
neutral events gradually take on reinforcing characteristics. These processes are not
random, however. The value of items or other events that serve as reinforcers or as
neutral stimuli can be altered through teaching.
A basic behavioral principle is that an event that repeatedly occurs in close time with
presentation of an already established reinforcer can in itself become a reinforcer. This is
the concept of conditioned reinforcement. Conditioning occurs when the two events (the
established reinforcer and the neutral event) occur close in time and contingent on some
36

other behavior. Most of the things that serve as reinforcement for us in our day to day
lives have been learned through this process. For instance, we have learned to like car
keys because they are associated with another reinforcer, namely taking car rides. If
money wasnt paired with access to a wide range of things that are important to us, it
wouldnt have value. We have learned to like money.
The principle of conditioned reinforcement can be a major tool in our work with children
who may not have a wide range of established reinforcers. The power of this principle
lies in the fact that we can teach others to like things that they otherwise may have
ignored.

An Example of Conditioning: Pairing Presentation of a Known Reinforcer

with a Neutral Stimulus

Bubbles are a neutral stimulus: the student regularly ignores them when they are presented as a
probe item on a preference assessment
Bubbles are presented and then immediately after the bubbles are blown, some candy is given to
the student. Candy had previously been determined to be a strong reinforcer.
Bubbles are repeatedly paired with candy and other known reinforcers.
Eventually the child begins looking at and even reaching toward the bubbles.
Blowing bubbles then become an event that can serve as reinforcement for the student.

View video D1
A second way of conditioning new reinforcers is more technical, but simple in its
implementation. One can condition a new item as reinforcing by making its presence
necessary for some other event to occur. In other words to get what you want, you have to
first get something else to occur. If this happens enough you learn to like the other item
almost as much as the first. For instance, a person may learn to like a certain store
because the particular store sells their favorite things. Eventually the person learns to like
going to that store even if they arent going to buy anything.
Dr. Jack Michael explains this in his book (Michael, 2004), Concepts and Principles of
Behavior Analysis. He notes that an event that serves as a reinforcer through behavior
evoked by a transitive motivative operation can later take on reinforcing characteristics. It
is fair to say that events can serve multiple functions. He notes that many and probably
most forms of conditioned reinforcers are dependent themselves upon other stimulus
conditions. We begin to like the stuff that is associated with our obtaining the stuff we
like.

Conditioning a New reinforcer Through a Transitive Motive Operation

(CMO-T)

A student enjoys playing with certain toy figurines on the floor.

The students teacher may start delivering the toys to the student by having them drop down a tube.
In order to access the figurines, the student needs to have the tube present (the MO for figurines
37

establishes the value of the tube and evokes all tube getting behavior.)
Prior to this the tube was a neutral stimulus.
Now, due to the CMO-T effects (needing the tube to get the toys), access to the tube becomes a
conditioned reinforcer.

View video D2

Selecting the Response Form

Behavior analysis stresses the importance of a clear, measurable definition of what
response will be targeted for reinforcement. We need to know precisely what we are
teaching. If we are concerned about teaching children to develop communication, we
must decide what communication behaviors will be shaped and strengthened through
reinforcement. Remember that verbal behavior, like all other behaviors, will have certain
characteristics that can be described in physical attributes such as which muscles are used
in the behavior, how much force those muscles exert, when in time and space the
movements occur, and so forth. Communication response forms such as vocal talk, sign
language or use of a communication device, will differ significantly in the muscles used
by the speaker as well as in other response dimensions including how easily they can be
emitted (response effort). As teachers who are concerned about quality of life issues for
students, we must select the response form for the student that will allow the greatest
independence of performance and that will be understood by as many people who interact
with the student as possible. We will also need to be concerned with how easy the
response form is to use and, if we must shape a response form that is not vocal, how
readily the form of communication can be transferred to vocal responses.
The first consideration when selecting a response form involves vocal responding. Given
the fact that almost all speakers use a vocal response form and the ease at which vocal
responses can be emitted in a fluent speaker, if at all possible a vocal response form
should be selected for a student. However, for many children with autism and other
disabilities, the acquisition of vocal responding is slowed or prohibited due to deficits in
related skill areas. A child who fails to demonstrate any ability to echo what has been said
or produces few spontaneous vocalizations will likely be less responsive to vocal training
procedures. In such cases, it is important to implement procedures using an augmentative
communication response system.
In order to select an augmentative communication system for a student, the instructional
team will need to be aware of certain topics related to response form. Two general classes
of response form in verbal behavior have been described (Michael, 1985). Those
response classes are topographical and selection-based. A topographical response class
involves responses that are discriminated by a listener based on distinguishable features
of the response. In other words the acoustical features of the sound produced when one

38

says dog will vary considerably from the acoustical patterns when one says cat. The
topography (or dynamic movements) is clearly distinguishable. This is true for certain
other response forms as well. Speakers of sign language produce clearly distinguishable
movements for each unit of functional control. In other words the signs used to ask for a
dog are quite different than the signs used to ask for a cat. The movements used in
writing are also topographically distinct and result in distinct response products.
Another form of verbal behavior does not involve such clearly distinguished movements
but yet provides stimuli that can be easily discriminated by a listener. A person can
simply point to things in the environment in order to produce effects on the listener. The
pointing shows little variation in the way it is emitted; rather the stimuli that are selected
by the pointing are what lead to the listeners differentiated response. When selection
based verbal behavior occurs, the selection of a stimuli functions the same as the change
of movement in topographical-based verbal behavior.

Topography Based Verbal

Behavior

Vocal
Signing
Written

Selection Based Verbal

Behavior

Picture exchange
Touch talkers and other devices
Communication board

View video E1
There are benefits and disadvantages of all communication response forms. Each method
of communicating has unique characteristics that make it more effective for specific
circumstances. For instance, writing is helpful when verbal behavior needs to be recalled
later. Voice activated devices will be helpful when the option of speaking with the vocal
musculature is not possible.
One way of classifying verbal behavior is to look at the form the behavior takes and the
environmental changes it generates. We may consider the behavior as the response form
and the ensuing environmental change the response product. Such a classification of
verbal behavior has been done by Patrick McGreevy (McGreevy, 2005).
The following chart reviews the relative advantages and disadvantages for the most
frequently used communication response forms and is adapted from the work of Patrick
McGreevy (2005).

Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Response Forms

Advantages
Spoken
Language

Most commonly used response form with

wide community of skilled listeners
Free from environmental support: no

Disadvantages

Difficult to prompt oral/vocal motor

movements
May be difficult to teach if the child does not

39


Sign
Language

Picture
Selection
with an
exchange

materials or devices needed

Spoken language allows instruction
across all verbal operants without
confounds related to multiple control
Motor movements can be prompted and
prompts faded
Signs often resemble what they
communicate (iconicity)
Like speech, signing is a topographical
system: each sign consists of distinct
movements
Free from environmental support: no
materials or devices needed
Sign language allows instruction across
all verbal operants without confounds
related to multiple control
Sign language is a language and has a
community of speakers and listeners
Scanning and pointing are the same for
each verbal relation thus making
response acquisition less complex
For picture exchange systems, contact
between listener and speaker is more
direct (requires some degree of physical
proximity.)
Can be easily prompted
Does not require use of the vocal
musculature system
May be more easily acquired with
individuals who have significant motor
skill deficits
Free from problems related to fidelity of
sound production (i.e., articulation
problems)

have at least a minimum level of echoic

repertoire (can begin repeating words or
sounds)

Staff need specific training in sign language

There may be a limited community of natural
speakers of sign language
Lack of a minimum level of motor imitation
can hinder more rapid acquisition of signs

Requires extensive preparation of

materials
Symbols and pictures become more abstract
for advanced language
Requires user to carry materials therefore
limiting situations and environments where it
can be used
Communication becomes more difficult as
language is acquired
Requires increasingly more complex visual
discrimination skills
It may be difficult to discern operant control
of responses: all responses involve match to
sample and therefore tacts and intraverbals are
not pure operants
Responding is relatively slow and limits the
flow of communication
Complex response form required; user must
scan and point while making a
discrimination between the various visual
stimuli
Communication is limited to the store of items
available (if there isnt a picture, the student
cant use that word.)

Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Response Forms

Advantages

Disadvantages
40

Picture
Selection
with voice
output

These devices can be programmed to

produce a full range of spoken
communication
Scanning and pointing are the same
for each verbal relation thus making
response acquisition less complex
Can be easily prompted
Does not require use of the vocal
musculature system
May be more easily acquired with
individuals who have significant
motor skill deficits

Picture
Selection
with voice
output

These devices can be programmed to

produce a full range of spoken
communication
Scanning and pointing are the same
for each verbal relation thus making
response acquisition less complex
Can be easily prompted
Does not require use of the vocal
musculature system
May be more easily acquired with
individuals who have significant
motor skill deficits

Voice activated devices must be

programmed
Electronic devises may be prone to
breaking or not working properly
Communication is limited to the store of
items available (device must be
programmed to allow full range of words
student can use)
Skilled speakers must become technology
savvy (must be able to navigate programs
on device)
Complex response form required; user
must scan and then point while also
making a discrimination between the
various visual stimuli available
Responding is slow and limits the natural
flow of communication
Requires user to carry device therefore
limiting situations and environments where
it can be used
Requires increasingly more complex visual
discrimination skills
Voice activated devices must be
programmed
Electronic devises may be prone to
breaking or not working properly
Communication is limited to the store of
items available (device must be
programmed to allow full range of words
student can use)
Skilled speakers must become technology
savvy (must be able to navigate programs
on device)
Complex response form required; user
must scan and then point while also
making a discrimination between the
various visual stimuli available
Responding is slow and limits the natural
flow of communication
Requires user to carry device therefore
limiting situations and environments where
it can be used
Requires increasingly more complex visual
discrimination skills

41

Advantages and Disadvantages of Various Response Forms

Advantages
Keyboarding

These devices can be programmed

to produce a full range of written
or, if voice activated, spoken
communication
Does not require use of the vocal
musculature system
Allows production of novel
responses that do not require
specific programming

Disadvantages

Requires skilled keyboarding skills

(refined motor movements)
Response is slow compared to signing and
spoken and limits the natural flow of
communication
Electronic devises may be prone to
breaking or not working properly
Requires user to carry device therefore
limiting situations and environments
where it can be used
Requires increasingly more complex
visual discrimination skills

Awareness of the relative advantages and disadvantages of various augmentative

communication systems assists instructors in the process of selecting a response form for
specific students.
Considerations When Making Decisions in Selecting a Response Form
1. The unique set of skills of the learner.
The particular pattern of skill acquisition demonstrated by a student may be most
easily identified through an analysis of a verbal behavior assessment protocol.
Appropriate verbal behavior assessments include the Assessment of Basic Language
and Learning Skills (Partington, 2007, Partington and Sundberg, 1998) and the Verbal
Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (Sundberg, unpublished
manuscript)
2. The ease of use for the various response forms
3. The degree to which the system allows development of a full range of verbal
responses.
4. The availability of instructional procedures to facilitate acquisition of verbal
responses

42

Here are some suggested guidelines for selecting a response form outlined by Dr.
Vincent Carbone (Carbone, 2005):
1. If echoic skills are moderate or at least weak, then vocal behavior should be the
response form of choice
2. If skilled attempts to teach a student an echoic repertoire are unsuccessful and the
student is unable to mand or tact, then an augmentative response form should be
considered.
3. If a student has a physical disability or a neurological disability which makes the
differential muscle control necessary for signing impossible, a pointing or
selection based system should be immediately considered.
4. If a student is young without physical conditions which preclude sign, then begin
an intensive signing program that includes speaking while signing. The teacher
will need to be skilled in prompting and differentially reinforcing vocalizations
that may occur. The main reason for using sign immediately is that signs may lead
to vocalizations more effectively than a selection based system.
5. For older students who may be involved in frequent community activities and
who do not have a strong echoic repertoire or frequent verbalizations, a
combination of signing and pointing systems may be best.
6. With older students signing should be taught because sign language will probably
be acquired more quickly and will occur more easily across most environments
and therefore may serve as a replacement for maladaptive (problem) behavior
more quickly an deficiently.
7. An older person may have a need to immediately be taught to verbally interact
with people in the community who do not have sign language skills and therefore,
the student might benefit from use of a picture selection system. In some cases,
the picture selection system may be more easily acquired once sign language has
been taught.
Dr. Carbone (2005) has also posited considerations regarding attempts to teach sign
language:
1. Obtain a sign manual or CD or take a signing course in ASL.
2. Make sure that all people who interact regularly with the student are familiar with
sign language
3. Teach the first signs as mands
4. Use teaching procedures that include the fading of physical and gestural prompts
to teach signed mands.
5. Insure that the student has many opportunities to use signs for mands.

43

6. Data systems should be in place to count the frequency of signed mands and to
record how many signed mands the student has acquired.
7. Sign language training will need to be used in conjunction with echoic training
and other procedures for teaching vocal responses.
8. Signs will need to be taught across all the verbal operants.

Pairing Social Interactions with the Delivery

of Reinforcement
Many students with autism have a strong history of contacting reinforcement without
social interaction or through problem behaviors. In such circumstances the children learn
to get what they want without approaching another person or they learn to engage in
various problem behaviors until someone responds by delivering a reinforcer. For
students who have limited ways to ask for what they want, other non-social behaviors
may become more prominent, such behaviors are enjoyable in themselves. These
behaviors may be referred to as self-stimulatory or repetitive behaviors. For children who
present such a pattern, it is important to teach the student to learn that appropriate social
interaction is valuable as a means of obtaining desired items and events.
In order to mand, the student must have an audience: people who can respond to their
requests. Therefore the student must first learn to like being with others. The way we
teach children to like others is through the process of pairing. Pairing involves the
repeated correlation of delivery of reinforcement with the presence of a particular
stimulus, in this case, other people.
By the reinforcement occurring only in the presence of another person, the student learns
that the person is a source of reinforcement and the person becomes a conditioned
reinforcer. To accomplish this conditioning, one must manipulate the environment so that
the availability of reinforcers occurs only in the presence of the other person.
At first glance it may seem contradictory to consider that one must limit a child from
getting things on their own. It seems as if this process will hinder the development of
independence. However, for students who fail to develop a basic ability to ask others
for what they want and for whom social interactions are not of value, independence is not
a priority: they actually engage in too much independent behavior in the form of selfstimulatory or repetitive behaviors.
A challenge that can occur in the process of pairing involves the balance of controlling
reinforcers and the opposing goal of making sure that the student can receive lots of
44

easily accessed reinforcement. Adults need to be the only source of reinforcement, but
also need to be a source that is easily accessed for delivery of highly valued events. If at
first the adult makes it too hard for the student to obtain desired items, the effort of
obtaining the item may result in it no longer having value to the student. If we make it too
much work, it will no longer be as much fun to be with the adult. As Dr. Jim Partington,
one of the authors of the ABLLS, has noted, we want the students to run to us.
Pairing needs to be fun, but it does require careful application. Adults must also insure
that reinforcement is only delivered in the absence of problem behavior. We do not want
to inadvertently reinforce behaviors that we do not want to see increase. This can pose a
challenge for situations in which students engage in frequent problem behavior. In other
words, it may be hard to find opportunities to pair delivery of a reinforcer because the
child emits frequent problem behavior.

View video F1

There is no specific time frame for conditioning the instructor as a reinforcer; the time
necessary to successfully pair can vary from minutes to months.

Considerations in the Pairing Process

Freely available reinforcement and lack of interaction

Sanitizing and delivery
Adults may need to wait patiently for pauses in problem behavior before making
reinforcement available.
Timing of delivery
Better with adult than alone
Gradual enticement: careful not to swamp the student with stimuli or make
something fun scary

There are things we can do to facilitate the pairing process. Here are some suggestions for
beginning the pairing process:

Suggestions for Beginning the Pairing Process

Limit access to reinforcers

Hold item and let child approach teacher (avoid delivering items when child is
moving away from you.)
When possible make activities more fun to do with an another person than alone
Gradually entice students to accept reinforcers, be careful not to move to fast with
certain reinforcers.
Contrariwise, do not hesitate to present novelty and surprise as reinforcers.
Be sure to deliver items that the child wants when they want it (be sure there is an
MO in effect.)
45

Deliver items that you can later teach the child to request
Monitor the strength and frequency of the childs approach behavior: data can be
kept with clicker counter and graphed (i.e., daily rate of approach behavior)

View videos F2 through F4

As you begin the pairing process, be sure to limit free access to reinforcers. Some call
this sanitizing the environment.
Entice the interaction by holding up the item and letting the child approach you. Be sure
to avoid delivering items when child is moving away from you.
When possible make activities more fun to do with another person than alone. This can
mean that you will want to deliver the reinforcer with enthusiasm. Add components of
interaction such as tone of voice, facial expression, touch, maybe even goofiness, that the
child would otherwise not access if they got the item on their own. Of course, be careful
not to overdo this. You dont want to be so enthusiastic that you take away the enjoyment
of the activity itself.
Gradually entice students to accept reinforcers, be careful not to move too fast with
certain reinforcers. Sometimes it may be helpful to deliver a preferred item to a child
nearby or to otherwise show that no demand will accompany the delivery of the
reinforcer.
However, do not hesitate to present novelty and surprise as reinforcers.
Be sure to deliver items that the child wants when they want it. In other words, attend to
the current motivative operation.
When selecting the reinforcers to deliver, consider that you will want to use things that
can initially be freely delivered but later can be used as targets for mand training. For
instance consider the ease of which the word for the item can be signed or pronounced.
Remember that not all things the child prefers can be used as reinforcement because they
may not be able to be controlled by the teacher. It is best to select reinforcers that can be
delivered in small quantities (to avoid satiation or habituation); that can be presented
repeatedly (allowing for more frequent reinforcement); that are dependent for delivery
upon another person (can be controlled by a teacher); and do not require the teacher to
remove the reinforcement. The ideal reinforcers are those that are easily controlled, have
natural termination, can be delivered multiple times and in small amounts, and are better
with you than without you (serve to establish the teacher as a conditioned reinforcer.)
As with all aspects of well designed programming, data is important. To insure success of
pairing, you will need to accurately monitor the strength and frequency of the childs
approach behavior. You can keep data with a clicker counter and graph the daily rate of
46

approach behavior versus escape behavior or you can use a data sheet to record frequency
of approach to particular items targeted for pairing.
Pair delivery of reinforcement when motivation is strong
The timing and quality of reinforcer delivery can significantly influence the value of
receiving reinforcement from other people. It is important to deliver reinforcers when the
childs motivation is at its strongest. Likewise, we should deliver reinforcers in ways that
will maintain their value. There are certain aspects of reinforcer delivery that will
maintain the value of those events selected to be paired. Here is a list of some techniques
that can help maintain the value of reinforcers and avoid habituation:
1. Vary the number of reinforcers used within any one session.
2. Vary the way the reinforcers are delivered including what you say during
delivery.
3. Vary the schedule of delivery. Do not allow the timing of delivery to be
completely predictable.
4. Stop delivery of reinforcement before it loses its value.
5. Vary the type of reinforcer used, for instance do not always use food or always
use activities; mix them up!
6. Avoid using too much of a reinforcer at any one delivery, less can sometimes
lead to wanting it more.

Pair delivery of reinforcement with mand form

During the pairing process instructors should say the name of the reinforcer as it is being
delivered. This process will correlate the instructors voice, and the name of the item or
event with delivery of the reinforcer. A side benefit of establishing this relationship may
be to have the sound of the word itself take on reinforcing qualities. This process has
been identified in the behavioral literature as the automatic reinforcement of vocal
responding. Establishing the sound of words as having value in and of themselves may
make it easier to have the student produce the word when they need it for making a
request.
With that in mind, the childs name should also occasionally be used as reinforcement is
delivered (so that hearing his or her name becomes correlated with good things) as
opposed to saying the students name as part of difficult task instructions.

47

48

Teaching the First Few Mands

Decision making and timing the beginning of formal mand instruction
As discussed so far, the process of pairing instructors with the delivery of reinforcement
cannot be rushed. It is important that other people become established as a source of
improving conditions for the student. Likewise, students lacking in mand repertoires will
need a significant amount of experience in learning the conditioned relationship between
a particular word and the specific reinforcement. The time necessary to establish this
relation will vary. For some students in may take months to develop strong approach
behavior. On the other hand, there are students who quickly acquire approach behavior
and for whom adults readily become conditioned reinforcers. Some students are able to
successfully acquire some mands on the first day or even in the first hour of initiating the
pairing and manding procedures.
The decision to begin teaching formal mand responses needs to be made based on an
ongoing analysis of student responding. When students approach and demonstrate strong
motivation to interact in order to obtain preferred items and activities from adults, they
are probably ready to begin learning to emit formal mands.
At times teachers have delayed initiating formal mand instruction in order to insure that
sufficient pairing has occurred. While initiating formal mand instruction too soon
presents the risks of frustrating the learner by reducing motivation or evoking escape
behavior, delaying onset of formal mand instruction may also present problems. The main
problem with delaying the onset of formal mand training is one may inadvertently
strengthen non-specific gestures or movements as generalized mands. We have often
noted that some children learn to obtain items by reaching with their hands toward the
item. That reaching behavior may interfere with their ability to use their hands for using
sign language or for making a picture exchange. Students who develop a strong history of
acquiring reinforcers with almost no response requirement may resist having to exert a
more effortful response such as speaking or signing to obtain the things they like.
Instructors need to make the decision on when to begin prompting and shaping specific
mand forms based on a dynamic and ongoing assessment of student approach behavior,
the degree to which untaught attempts to mand emerge, and the relative strength of
motivation for currently available stimuli. In other words, decide when to begin teaching
the child to use specific mands based on observing the student. Do not set a time line in
advance, rather make sure that the child is staying near you and accepting things from
you.
Here are some guidelines to assist you in deciding when to initiate introducing the
teaching of formal mand forms.

49

When to Initiate the Teaching of Formal Mand Forms

1. Observe the amount of effort necessary to keep the student in proximity to the
instructor.
2. Take approach data and review the data frequently.
3. Keep record of the students approach to specific reinforcers.
4. Begin mand training when the presentation of certain item or activities are
observed to evoke strong and consistent approach behavior.
5. Consider how many items evoke approach behavior. Instructors will need to teach
more than one mand, so it will be important to assess whether the student
approaches for at least two or more items or activities.
6. Notice whether the student is in any way attempting to make requests such as
beginning to imitate words or sounds, reaching, looking intently at the reinforcer,
and so forth.
7. Also consider the relative strength and consistency of wanting items that will
serve as mand training targets.

Selecting Targets for Mand Training

Doing a good job teaching requires that you first know what it is you are going to teach.
When teaching children to mand, the first question we need to ask is what are we going
to teach them to ask for? Although the simple answer teaching them to ask for what
they want is very relevant, there are other variables that need to be considered when
selecting what to teach.
At this point, instructors will have determined through the preference assessment process
which items are highly likely to serve as reinforcers. Likewise, instructors will have
worked to establish themselves as a source of reinforcement for the student. It then
becomes important to decide which reinforcing items or activities will be taught to the
child as mands. In the course of our discussions about mand training, those reinforcing
items or activities selected for teaching as mands will be referred to as target mands.
Keep in mind that not all events that are potentially reinforcing will be appropriate to
target for mand training. For instance, some reinforcers may not be able to be delivered
frequently. The child may have a hard time learning to mand for such items because the
opportunities to practice requesting are so limited. On the other hand, some reinforcers
may be difficult to control by adults, thus the student may be able to obtain them without

50

ever learning to ask for them. Other reinforcers may involve emitting complex
movements or vocalizations that will be hard to teach. For instance, a student may enjoy
eating pomegranates, but pomegranate may be too hard for an early learner to say.

Guidelines for Selecting Reinforcers to Be Used in Early Mand

Training

Chose items that are consumable or allow only duration of contact

Use items and activities that are consistently motivating for the student. Focus on
teaching mands for items that the child consistently wants.
Chose items that are easy to deliver
Select words that are familiar to the child, words that have been heard frequently
in their day to day experience.
Consider words for the vocal responder that are easy to pronounce
Consider signed words whose movements are easy to produce and easy to prompt
Avoid selecting words that can be used to control multiple types of reinforcers.

When choosing items that are consumable it may be wise to use small bits of edibles that
will be consumed quickly and allow the instructor to deliver many trials. Pushing a child
on a swing or pulling in wagon will only last for a brief period of time; adults can push or
pull often. On the other hand a favorite toy doll can only be delivered once, unless the
instructor removes the doll. Removing the doll may lead to problem behaviors if the doll
is important to the child. Note that it is important to teach children to give up reinforcers,
none the less; early in mand training removing a preferred item can lead to problem
behaviors that will compete with the development of appropriate mands. In some
circumstances, such reinforcers may be quite valuable, in which case you may use
strategies that do not involve removal of the item, for instance delivering lots of little
dolls that the student may like. Some toy items may be easy to remove: a ball that rolls
down a ramp can be retrieved by the instructor and then can be immediately available for
rolling again thus providing an opportunity for another mand trial.
A walk to the store may be reinforcing, but in most circumstances it will be difficult to
provide a trip to the store as soon as the child asks for it. On the other hand a small bit of
cookie or a tickle can be delivered within seconds of the mand occurring.
As we discussed earlier a child may once in a while like a certain fruit that may be
available in the classroom for a day or so, but wont be regularly available for consistent
mand training opportunities. It may also be a fruit that the child will have heard said in
51

their day to day experiences. The student will be better served if fruits that are more
regularly available are taught as target mands.
As noted above, avoid selecting words that can be used to control multiple types of
reinforcers. Such words can include more, help and please. Such generalized
mands may prevent a student from acquiring a broader mand repertoire for specific
reinforcers. While it will eventually be important to teach children to ask for help and to
say please, introducing these mands too early may interfere with the acquisition of other
mands.

52

Steps in Teaching a Specific Mand

Although a systematic approach to teaching the first mands is required, the mand is tied
to motivation and therefore, the process requires a balance between procedural accuracy
and having fun. Mand instructors balance effective control of variables such as prompts
and timing of reinforcer delivery with a careful monitoring of the students enjoyment of
the process. Of course we can assess the students enjoyment of the process through
observable behavior such as how much they are smiling, approaching adults, and the
frequency of reaching towards others. For the most part, mand training should be a
gleeful process.

The Steps to Teaching a Specific Mand

Verify motivation is in place (capture or contrive).

Model/pair mand form and reinforcer delivery.
Prompt the mand as the child shows motivation. This requires that the instructor
selects the appropriate prompt level for the student.
If the response occurs, the instructor can either immediately deliver the reinforcer
or represent the item in order to immediately fade prompts.
On future trials with the same item continue to systematically fade prompts.
Once all prompts are faded, continue to provide dense practice for the child in
using the mand across a variety of settings and in discrimination with other
mands.

View video G1
Before the instructor presents the first mand trial, verification of motivation is necessary.
Watch to see if the child responds through approaching the item. If the child turns away
or otherwise avoids contact, it suggests that adequate motivation is not in effect. Keep in
mind that the child can turn away for a variety of reasons and not always because they
lack motivation for the item. For example, the teacher may be a warning signal that some
instructional demands are about to occur. For this reason, mand trainers need to avoid
inserting other demands during the early phases of the mand training process. As we
stated earlier, the instructor at this point will have needed to provide the student with
experiences, for instance, lots of free delivery of reinforcers, which condition the
instructor as a set of improving conditions. If the instructor identifies that motivation is
not present then the next step would be to contrive motivation or to select another
reinforcer. Once motivation is verified and the student presents a strong approach to the
reinforcer, we are ready to begin the process of shaping or firming the specific mand
response form.

53

Prompt Procedures
There are two main ways of establishing a specific response as an independently emitted
mand. One involves the use of a time delay procedure without prompts, the other
involves a process of directly prompting the response and systematically fading prompts.
Often in practice, these approaches are used simultaneously for different targets with
individual students depending on their current skill level in relation to the various mands
being taught. For instance, if the student can emit the target mand with only a short wait
period following the presentation of an item then it will not be necessary to add any
additional prompts. The student may readily imitate a signed response for a target mand
such as candy and modeling the response and pausing will be all it takes to get the
child to emit the candy sign on their own. For another mand such as cookie, the
movements of the sign may need to be physically prompted in order for the child to make
the sign. It is always important to continuously monitor the quality of responses made by
the student. Teaching mands is necessarily a dynamic process. The selection of prompting
and time delay strategies must be made based on student performance.
When we refer to time delay in regards to the initial process of getting the child to use a
particular sign or say a particular word, we are suggesting a particular use of the timing
of delivery of the reinforcer. As we discussed, at this point the teacher has already paired
delivery of the reinforcer with a model of the response form. When the teacher shows the
reinforcing item to the student, it serves as a discriminative stimulus suggesting its
availability. On previous occasions, during the early pairing process, the student will not
have been required to do anything to get the item other than demonstrate approach
behaviors such as perhaps looking at or staying near the teacher. The student may also
engage in behaviors such as reaching for the item, making indistinct vocalizations, or
smiling and nodding. Because of this history when the teacher does not immediately
deliver the reinforcer, the student may be prone to engaging in other behaviors than those
described. The variation in behavior is likely to occur because of extinction effects. When
previous behaviors are no longer reinforced, the student will likely engage in new
behaviors or emit current behaviors in a stronger form. Extinction, as you may recall,
results in changes in variation of behavior and magnitude of response. Because the mand
form had been previously paired with delivery of the item, the sight or sound of the mand
form may have taken on reinforcing properties. Therefore when the tendency to emit
variation is in place, it will most likely evoke some behavior that is already reinforcing to
the student. Hence the student may have some probability of emitting the formal shape of
the response form. In other words they will say or sign what they want using those
response forms that have been seen or heard when they were given what they enjoy.
If the student does not emit any response during the period in which delivery of the
reinforcer is delayed, it is likely that the repeated pairing has not been in itself effective in
helping the student to acquire the response form. Therefore it may become necessary for
the instructor to deliberately prompt the response. Prompting strategies become critical at
this point. Remember that prompts need to be selected based on the degree to which they
reliably evoke the response and their level of intrusiveness.

54

Criteria for selecting Prompts

Select the prompt that is sure to evoke the desired response
Select the least intrusive prompt necessary to evoke the response

In other words, prompt in a way that will get the response you want, but do not use any
prompt that is stronger than what you need. The reason for this is that if you prompt too
much, you risk having the student become dependent on your prompts. If prompts are to
be used to evoke mands, the prompt fading procedures will again involve time delay
procedures. The specific time delay procedures for prompt fading are known as constant
time delay and progressive time delay.
Before we go further we will need to discuss some guidelines for using effective prompt
procedures. Remember that in relation to the mand, prompts are any event other than
motivation that serves to evoke the response. Planning prompt procedures requires
planning prompt fade procedures. Our goal in prompt fading is to get the student to a
level of independence in which they can use the mand to ask for what they want in many
or most naturally occurring situations. Although we aim to teach pure mands under the
control of motivation only, we are aware that in the real world, most mands are multiply
controlled. The mand is most likely to occur when some discriminative stimulus is
present.

Guidelines for Using Prompts (Wolery, Bailey and Sugai, 1988)

Select the least intrusive but effective prompt

Combine prompts if necessary
Select natural prompts and those that are related to the behavior
Provide prompts only when the students are attending
Provide prompts in a supportive, instructive manner
Fade prompts as soon as possible

What follows are some expanded comments regarding the guidelines for effective
prompting as they relate to the mand training process.
Select the least intrusive but effective prompt
What we mean by least intrusive is using prompts that involve the least amount of
physical contact as is possible or the least magnitude of prompt. For example it is
better to use a very quiet prompt rather than a louder prompt, it is better to use a light
physical touch at the elbow rather than a full hand over hand prompt as long as they
result in a correct response.
Combine prompts if necessary

55

It is acceptable and sometimes necessary to use two or more types of prompts at the
same time. One can use a model prompt such as saying the mand response at the
same time as using a gestural prompt for the student to emit a vocalization. Both
prompts will have to be faded, of course.
Select natural prompts and those that are related to the behave
If a naturally occurring event signals the availability of a reinforcer, then use of some
aspect of that event as a prompt may be appropriate. For example, if a using a
particular brand logo as a prompt for French fry reliably leads to a student to saying
the word French fry and if he is likely to need to ask for French fries in the
restaurant where the brand logo occurs, there will be no need to fade the prompt until
generalization is needed. Generalization would involve getting him to ask for French
fries in other restaurants or at home without prompts.
Provide prompts only when the students are attending
In the mand frame this simply means wait until the child exhibits motivation as
indicated by his looking at the item or at the instructor, reaching for or approaching
the item. Avoid prompting before the child has observed the potential reinforcer and
avoid prompting if the child turns away from the item.
Provide prompts in a supportive, instructive manner
This simply means to present prompts in ways that are supportive and that reduce the
likelihood of the prompt itself becoming aversive.
Fade prompts as soon as possible
Whenever prompts are used they need to be faded. This is a central tenet of effective
teaching. This issue will be discussed further as we present details on time delay
procedures.

56

Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Vocal Mands

The chart which follows provides a sequence of steps in fading prompts when shaping a
mand in a student who uses a vocal response form. The chart provides only an example of
the prompt fading procedures. In actual practice, the steps in fading prompts will be
determined by the quality of the student response at each step. For some students,
prompts may be able to be faded more quickly; for other students, repeatedly prompting
responses will be necessary before attempting to reduce prompts.

Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Vocal Mands

Step
1
2
3
4

5.
6.

Antecedent
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball (echoic prompt)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says bah (partial echoic prompt)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult whispers bah (partial echoic prompt)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult forms lip in shape of buh without
saying anything
Ball is physically present

Behavior
Says ball

View video H1
Consequence
Gets the ball

Child wants the ball (MO)

Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)

57

Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Signed

Mands
As with vocal mands, the actual process for fading prompts will be determined by the
quality of response emitted by the learner. Here is an example of prompt fading for a
student who uses sign language.

Possible Hierarchy for Prompts: Signed Mands

Step
1

5.

6.
7.
8.

View video H2

Antecedent
Behavior
Consequence
Child wants the ball (MO)
Signs ball
Gets the ball
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Adult provides full hand over hand physical prompt for sign
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Adult provides partial hand over hand physical prompt for sign
(first step of prompt fade)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Adult prompts sign at wrist (partial physical prompt with fade)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Adult prompts sign at elbow (partial physical prompt fade)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Adult moves hand toward childs arm but doesnt make contact
(prompt fade)
Ball is physically present
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Adult signs ball (model prompt)
Child wants the ball (MO)
Adult says ball vocally
Child wants the ball (MO)
These examples represent possible strategies to fade prompts. Remember, however, that
prompt fading involves an analysis of both the motivative variables and student level of
58

response. For items in which there is a relatively strong motivative operation, less
prompts and more rapid prompt fading can occur. This is also the case for students who
have acquired the ability to easily pronounce or echo what is said to them. Prompt fading
may be a slower process for children who are less motivated and for whom speaking or
signing is more difficult.

Some Considerations in Prompting the First

Mands
This section will include a significant amount of detail. Instructors are advised to study
the suggestions and procedures carefully. The following chart summarizes topics that will
be covered in this section.

Some Considerations in Prompting the First Mands

Transferring operant control from other types of verbal behavior to the mand
Echoic to mand prompts and transfer procedures
Tact to mand prompts and transfer procedures
Physical prompting of signed mand responses and transfer procedures
Imitative prompts and signed mand responses and transfer procedures
An intraverbal response for use as a prompt in signed mands and related transfer
trials
Multiple Control of Mand Behavior
Use of Repeated Prompt Procedures
Mand Transfer Trials as a Time Delay Process
Error Correction and Reducing Scrolled Responses

Transferring operant control from other types of verbal behavior to the mand
The analysis of verbal behavior provides a theoretical model that can guide selection of
the types of prompts to be used in shaping up the first mands. Students who are beginning
mand training present varied patterns of performance in the development of verbal
behavior. Some students may be strong at echoic behavior, some strong at tacts, some
may even respond well with intraverbal responses for songs or dialogue from their
favorite TV programs. A critical early step in teaching students language is to perform an
adequate assessment of their skills across the various forms of verbal and nonverbal
operant control. Instructors will make better decisions regarding prompting if they are
informed about a students level of skill in relation to echoic skills, tact skills, imitation
skills, match to sample skills, textual (sight reading) skills and intraverbal skills.

View video H3
59

Echoic to mand prompts and transfer procedures

A student who has not developed the ability to repeat what is said to them is likely to
have difficulty responding when told to say words so that he or she can get what they
want. If the child cannot echo saying apple, telling them to say apple as a mand
prompt, is unlikely to be effective. On the other hand, evoking a mand involves use of
strategies to put in place strong motivation, so that some students may indeed learn to
repeat what is said through mand training quicker than they would through echoic trials.
For the student who can readily echo what is said, an echoic prompt will likely be the
most effective way of ensuring that the student says what they want during mand training.
Echoic prompts can be faded through use of a transfer trial in which the prompt is fully
faded on a second presentation of the item. If fully fading the prompt is not effective, a
partial prompt fading procedure can be used with an echoic prompt. For instance, the
teacher can simply say the first syllable of the target word.
Stimulus fading can also be used by reducing the volume of the echoic prompt, in other
words whispering the word.

View video H4
Tact to mand prompts and transfer procedures
Some vocal students who may not be able to respond to echoic prompts may respond to
prompts involving presentation of a visual stimulus. In other words they may respond to a
prompt that involves emitting a tact. These students would need to have developed an
adequate tact repertoire. In other words they would need to be able to say the name of the
item when it is presented but not in conditions when motivation to obtain the item is in
force. This procedure might involve holding up an item, having the child label the item
and then immediately delivering the item when the student emits the response. In most
situations, this is the process by which mands are acquired naturally. During the mand
training process it may take extended periods of time before a student is able to fade the
presence of the item as a controlling aspect of the mand.
Prompt fading procedures would entail presenting a second trial in close proximity to the
first in which item is removed. Again partial prompting can occur by reducing the time
the item is visible and eventually just hinting that the prompt may be given by
beginning to raise the item without actually doing so.
Further discussion of fading the use of the item present as a prompt for mands will occur
in a later section of this video entitled Fading to the MO.

View video H5 and H6

60

Physical prompting of signed mand responses and transfer procedures

As discussed earlier students with limited or absent echoic and vocal tact repertoires will
likely require use of augmentative communications systems. For these students, sign
language will often be the response form of choice. Knowing the strength of a students
imitation skill repertoire will be quite helpful in deciding which prompts to use. If a
student has a limited ability to imitate motor actions involving the arms and hands, signed
mands will likely need to be physically prompted. Decisions for selecting a physical
prompt will depend on several variables. As a general principle it is probably best to use
the least amount of physical contact that will be effective in having the child produce the
motor movements for the sign. It is better to lightly touch the child at the elbow if it will
result in having them move their hand to the position to sign candy (index finger to
cheek) than it would be to place your entire hand over the students hand and move it to
the candy position. Of course it may be necessary to move the entire hand to have the
sign occur.
When physically prompting signed mands, instructors need to be aware of subtle
behaviors emitted by the student. Some observations that may help guide the immediate
and dynamic prompt decision process include:
1. Fade prompts while you are in the process of prompting if you feel the student
beginning to make the movements on their own. When prompting pay careful
attention to the students muscle movements.
2. Over-prompting a student (providing a greater degree of prompting than is
necessary: moving the hands or arms too much) can result in the student learning
that they will get what they want if they allow someone to manipulate their hands:
they may not learn that it is their own movements that result in the delivery of the
reinforcer.
3. Avoid, when possible, physically prompting a student when they are in the
process of reaching toward an item. If the instructor waits to prompt until the
student reaches, the reach may become shaped as a generalized mand that
interferes with the student learning to emit movements in other directions or fields
of motion. Most signs involve movements that do not include reaching toward
others; if reaching is followed by being prompted and the prompting is correlated
with delivery of reinforcement, the child will learn to reach as a mand. The
reaching may be incompatible with arm and hand movements that involve a
different direction of movement.
4. As with all prompts, attempts should be made to fade physical prompts as soon as
possible. This can be done through an immediate transfer trial without prompts
before delivering the reinforcer; using a transfer trial following delivery of the
reinforcer without prompts; or a prompt fade transfer trial (a transfer trial of either
type that is not completely without the physical prompt but rather includes a
lesser degree of prompt.) For certain students you may be able to change to
another type of prompt, such an echoic or tact prompt.

61

5. For some students, fading prompts too soon may result in a slower pace of mand
acquisition. This may occur in conditions when the student needs more experience
in having the particular movements of a sign contact the reinforcer. In such cases,
it will be important for the instructor to provide multiple prompted trials before
attempting to fade prompts. The use of repeated prompts as a strategy will be
covered in more detail later.
Although it is likely that a student who has strong imitative skills will acquire signed
mand responses more rapidly than a student who has poor motor imitation skills, it does
not necessarily mean that a student with limited imitation should not be taught to use sign
language as a response form. Because the mand involves responding under conditions of
strong motivation, some students will learn to imitate through mand training procedures.
The process would involve the student learning the value of doing what other people do
from learning that such behavior gets them the things they want. Physical prompting of
signs when done in combination with an effective model of the sign and a strong
motivative operation can establish a value for imitating actions.

View video H7

Imitative prompts and signed mand responses and transfer procedures

There are students who have developed an ability to imitate the movements of others
although they have not learned to make requests. For these students their skill at imitating
can be a very useful tool in the mand training process. The basic principle involves first
teaching the student to imitate the movements of the signs that will later be transferred
through stimulus control procedures to the mand frame. This process can involve the
following steps;
1. First teach the student to imitate the movements of the sign when told do this
while a model of the movements is provided. Provide general reinforcement for
successful imitation.
2. As the child becomes able to imitate the specific movements of the sign, add a
label for the movement as part of the verbal direction do this, apple while again
modeling the sign.
3. Transfer the imitative response to the mand by having the student imitate the sign
in the situation wherein he or she is motivated to obtain the particular reinforcer
associated with the sign. For instance, tell the student do this, apple while
presenting the hungry student with an apple, when the student imitates the apple
sign, deliver the reinforcer.
4. After the student begins to consistently emit the apple sign following an imitative
prompt, begin fading prompts through use of transfer trial procedures. Again you

62

may be able to fully fade the prompt on a transfer trial or you may need to use a
partial fade of the imitative model as a transfer trial.
5. Once the student is consistent in responding to transfer trials and is occasionally
producing unprompted mands, the repeated prompt process can be discontinued.

View video H8 and H9

An intraverbal response for use as a prompt in signed mands and related transfer
trials
One additional prompt that can be used in prompting signed mands is an intraverbal
prompt. This process involves first teaching the student to imitate the motions of the sign,
under control of the discriminative stimulus (SD) do this combined with a model of the
sign. Following the child being able to imitate the sign, efforts can be taken to pair the
sign with a specific verbal stimulus, so rather than saying do this the verbal component
of the SD would be transferred to sign apple along with the model. Once the student has
learned to imitate the sign with the SD sign apple, transfer of operant control can occur
to the condition in which the teacher simply says sign apple with no imitative model
provided. The result of these steps is having a student who is now able to emit certain
signs when told to do so. Keep in mind that the response you have established (signing a
word when told to do so) is technically an intraverbal response because the stimulus is
verbal, the response is verbal and neither share formal characteristics; there is no point to
point correspondence. It is intraverbal behavior in the same fashion that translating a
word from one language to another is intraverbal. When someone says dog in English
and the Slovak response pes is emitted, intraverbal behavior has occurred even though
dog and pes would serve as equivalent tacts in the presence of a canine.
Once the student is able to emit specific signs when told to do so, instructors can then set
up situations where there is motivation for an item, then prompt the appropriate response,
by telling the student to emit the sign, for example saying, sign apple and then upon the
student signing, immediately delivering the reinforcer, in this case a bit of apple. As with
other prompt strategies, fading the intraverbal prompt should occur as soon as possible.

View video H10

A Note on Multiple Control of Mand Behavior
When students are first learning to request items, multiple variables control the students
behavior of asking for what they want. The instructor will likely hold the item in view of
the student and will also model the sign or the word. As you are aware a pure mand is
controlled only by a motivative operation. As part of the training process, instructors will
need to plan to fade all prompts. Also when selecting prompts, the instructor will need to
consider choosing from a variety of prompt forms, such as tact, echoic, imitation and
physical prompts as would be appropriate for the students skill pattern. Again the skill
pattern can be deduced from review of a verbal behavior assessment such as the
Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (Partington, 2007; Partington &
63

Sundberg, 1998); or the Verbal Behavior-Milestones Assessment for Program Planning,

(Sundberg, unpublished manuscript).

Use of Repeated Prompt Procedures

As noted earlier, with some students it will not be possible to fade prompts through
immediate transfer procedures. A more extended series of prompted mand trials will be
necessary to establish the relation between the sign or vocal response and the delivery of
specific reinforcement. The process of employing a repeated series of prompts will
necessarily include certain procedures to ensure establishing the appropriate response and
reducing the chances of prompt dependency.
The decision to provide repeated prompted trials needs to made through a careful analysis
of data as well as observation of the students responses during the mand training
sessions. Here are some of the reasons why one may decide to provide repeated
prompted trials rather than immediate transfer trials to unprompted conditions:

Failure to acquire the correct response form.

Attempts to fade prompts result in high rates of errors.
The student engages in scrolling of responses and attempts by staff to correct
scrolling do not result in acquisition of the correct mand response. Scrolling
refers to when the student emits a string of responses before emitting the correct
response. It is as if they are scrolling through all the choices of response that
might get them what they want. Methods to reduce scrolled responses will be
spelled out in a later section.

64

The Procedure for Providing Repeated Prompts

1. Decide most effective least intrusive prompt that is consistent with the students
pattern of performance.
2. Decide most effective least intrusive prompt that is consistent with the students
pattern of performance.
3. Set the criteria for the number of prompted trials that will occur before attempting
to fade.
4. Determine if a fade schedule for reducing repeated prompt trials for a specific
reinforcer will need to be used.
5. Review data and make instructional decisions based on pattern of performance.
The following discussion will provide more detail on the process of providing
repeated prompts when necessary.
1. Decide most effective least intrusive prompt that is consistent with the students
pattern of performance.
2. Decide most effective least intrusive prompt that is consistent with the students
pattern of performance.
3. Set the criteria for the number of prompted trials that will occur before attempting
to fade. Although we cannot propose a standard number of prompted trials for any
individual student without knowledge of their specific patterns of developing prompt
dependency, our experiences suggest that using from 8 to 12 prompted responses
before attempts to transfer to an unprompted trial may be effective for many learners.
Keep in mind that certain students may request more or less consecutive prompted
trials depending on how quickly they respond to the process. Students may also vary
on how much prompting they need dependent upon the strength of their motivation.
In other words, they may need repeated prompts for one reinforcer which they like
but are not crazy about versus another reinforcer which they are always thrilled to
receive.
When providing mand opportunities for those items targeted for repeated prompting,
provide an immediate 0 second time delay prompts each time the item is presented
until the set number of prompted trials has been reached. 0 second time delay prompts
are prompts that are delivered immediately and do not allow the student to make an
error are termed However, if other items are also being presented that are not in need
of repeated prompting, run these interspersed with no prompts or immediate transfer
trials. This means that you dont need to run all prompted items for the targeted item
consecutively. Keep in mind that you will be working on more than one mand target.
It is important to intersperse mand trials for various items to ensure that good
discrimination is acquired. The students motivation and rate of skill acquisition will
guide how many items are worked on during mand training.
4. Determine if a fade schedule for reducing repeated prompt trials for a specific
reinforcer will need to be used. For some items, if 10 repeated prompts are provided
and then a transfer trial occurs which results in a correct mand, it may be feasible to
provide unprompted trials on future presentations of the item. More likely, however,
65

you will need to gradually fade both the number of prompted trials (for instance, from
10 trials to 5 trials) and prompt level (for instance, from full to partial prompt) on
subsequent mand trials following the correct performance on the transfer.
5.
Review data and make instructional decisions based on pattern of performance.
Here is a data sheet that may be helpful in tracking the process of providing repeated
prompts in the mand frame.

Student Name: __________________

Date(s):________

REPEATED PROMPT MAND DATA SHEET

Target

Prompt Level

Attempted
fade
successful?

Prompt Level

N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Y

Attempted
fade
successful?
Y

N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Y
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Prompt Level

Y
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Attempted
fade
successful?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Y

N
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Instructions:
- Write in description of prompt under prompt level column
- Once 10 trials at current level are completed, attempt to fade
- If attempt successful: move to 10 trials at faded prompt level
- If attempt to fade unsuccessful: Repeat 10 trials at current prompt level.

66

Mand Transfer Trials as a Time Delay Process

In the preceding section we discussed the form of various prompts that can be used to insure that
the student emits the desired topography of mand behavior. In our discussion we suggested the
use of transfer trials to fade prompts and to promote independent manding. The actual process of
using transfer trials will involve some additional information. The term transfer trial refers to a
rapid procedure for transferring stimulus control from the prompted to the unprompted condition
in programs of instruction involving discrete trials. In simple terms we need to be able to help the
student emit the response and then quickly remove that help so the student asks independently.
We remove the help by waiting for a little while before prompting in order to encourage an
independent response.
Remember that when prompts are delivered immediately and do not allow the student to make an
error, they are termed 0 second time delay prompts.
Here is some basic information on implementing time delay procedures.

Steps to Implement Time Delay Procedure

(Wolery, Ault, and Doyle, 1992)

Identify the stimulus (prompt) that cues the student to respond

Assess the students ability to wait for a prompt

Identify the number of 0 second time delay prompt trials to be used

Identify the length of prompt delay interval for transfer trials

Determine the consequences based on student responding for successful

performance with and without prompting

Implement, monitor, and adjust program based on student performance and data
patterns.

As this chart indicates, the time delay between the presentation of the desired item and the
prompt is held constant. When initially teaching a mand, a 0 second time delay prompt is used.
In other words when the reinforcer is shown to the child and thus signals it is available and the
student demonstrates motivation to obtain the reinforcer, the instructor immediately prompts the
response.
Remember, the term transfer trial refers to a rapid procedure for transferring stimulus control
from the prompted to the unprompted condition in programs of instruction involving discrete
trials. Transfer trials with verbal operant training involve the use of recency effects: any behavior
that has just been reinforced is more likely to occur than other behaviors in the period following
its reinforcement. Thus a successful prompt with a 0 second delay will make responding with a
longer time delay more likely.
In order to fade the response, the next step is to begin shifting from the errorless process of
immediate prompting to a prompt fade interval. To accomplish this, the instructor puts in place a

different rule regarding prompt timing. Basically, the instructor waits a little while in order to see
if the student will emit the mand without prompts. If the student fails to emit the mand after a
longer time delay, for instance from 3 to 5 seconds, the instructor then provides a prompt to
ensure that the mand occurs and can be reinforced. Because motivation to emit the mand must
build for students, the time delay period can be set for intervals of up to 5 or more seconds
depending on the students pattern of responding. The time delay allows transfer of operant
control for the mand from the prompted to an unprompted condition. However, the instructor
will need to monitor the student during the time delay interval. If the student emits an error in the
interval it may be likely that the student will require a greater number of consecutive immediate
prompted mand trials or other procedures to reduce scrolling.
Decisions to increase the interval of time delay can be made based on the consistency of accurate
student manding. The time delay used for any specific mand may vary. If a student exhibits
stronger motivation to receive an item, the instructor may be able to use a longer time delay
interval.

Steps in Using Time Delay Procedures for Prompting Mands

Wait for child to show motivation (capture or contrive)

Model and pair mand form and reinforcer delivery (say it and/or sign it as you
deliver the item)

Prompt the mand with a 0 second time delay

Deliver reinforcer as child emits prompted response

Re-present item and pause 5 seconds, if spontaneous mand occurs, deliver

reinforcer, if not and child is reaching for item, prompt mand response and deliver
reinforcer (this is a transfer trial)

If error occurs in time delay period, use error correction procedures outlined for
each response form

Increase time delay interval with success of independent responses

View video I 1

Error Correction and Reducing Scrolled

Responses
In the process of learning mands students are likely to emit error responses until the specific
mands are learned to strength. As is true for most educational programming, learning will be
facilitated by reducing student errors in acquiring mands. In our earlier discussion of prompting
we listed a number of steps that can be taken, including use of effective immediate and time
delay prompting strategies, to reduce student errors in making requests. However, even with
careful planning and delivery of instruction, student errors in the mand process can occur.
There are two main types of errors that can occur in the mand frame. The first error involves the
student emitting the wrong topography for a mand. In other words they may mispronounce the
word, the sign language response can be made with inaccurate movements, they may make
frequent repetitions of the vocal word or sign, or they may use volume, tonal or other prosodic
patterns that are inappropriate or punishing to the listener.
The second type of error that can occur is known as scrolling. In scrolling the student emits a
correctly formed topography, in other words, the student uses a well formed vocal word or sign,
but the topography emitted is not the one that would usually control the specific reinforcer. The
error pattern is one in which the child says words or uses signs that in the past have resulted in
the delivery of reinforcers but are not the correct word for the particular item they want at the
time. Most often in scrolling, multiple error responses are emitted in a sequential fashion which
may include the correct topography. It is almost as if the student is fishing for the correct
response.
Although we indicate two classes of errors, the error correction procedures for both classes will
be quite similar.
When the student emits the error, the first consideration we need to make is how to prevent the
error response from contacting reinforcement. In other words, we have to be sure that when the
child says or signs the wrong thing that they do not get the item. Likewise it is not to be in any
way suggested that they have an increased chance of getting the item. So when the student emits
the error response the first step is to remove the reinforcer, usually if possible, by putting it
behind the instructors back or otherwise out of sight. The instructor should then signal to the
student that reinforcement will not be available through averting eye gaze and perhaps raising a
palm to the student to signal a wait period. If the student has been taught to follow the direction
wait, this may be an appropriate time to have the child fold hands and wait. After a period of
time, usually a certain number of seconds, the instructor will again present the reinforcer and
immediately prompt the correct response. Following the correction trial (response following the
immediate prompt), if possible provide a transfer trial to a more independent mand response. Of
course for mands, the decision to provide a transfer trial may have to be made based on strength
of motivation and the degree to which the particular reinforcer can be delivered repeatedly. Also,
with certain scrolled responses, it may be wise to present a discrimination trial for another
reinforcer rather than providing a transfer trial.

View videos J1 and J2

In order to determine the interval of the time delay between the emission of an error mand and
the presentation of the next trial, several factors should be considered. One is the students
probability of engaging in problem behavior. For students who may engage in problem behavior,
you may want to start with a shorter interval of about 3 seconds but remember to increase that
interval as the student gains the ability to wait. For most students, especially those who have
acquired many mands, the interval can be set at 5 to 10 seconds.
Another consideration in the error correction process involves differential reinforcement. If a
student emits an error response and then is prompted to emit the correct response, less
reinforcement should be delivered than if the student emits the correct mand without prompts.
Always remember to give better reinforcement for independent responding.
There will be times where the error correction procedures we just mentioned are not effective in
reducing the rate of scrolling. At such times a more formal approach to teaching mand
discrimination may be needed. Here are the procedures for running a mand discrimination
program to reduce scrolling. These procedures have been adopted from the work of Dr. Vince
Carbone (Carbone, 2005).
The goal of the procedures is to bring topographies of mands under the control of the appropriate
stimuli, namely the item and the MO, without evoking a plethora of other mand responses.
Step one involves conducting a probe of the target mand responses and noting the occurrence of
scrolled responses. To do this:
1. Have all reinforcers available across many motivational categories.
2. List the reinforcers on the discrimination data sheet
3. Probe for Motivation: Begin the 1st probe (cold probe) by offering the reinforcer (i.e.,
hold it up, place it to the learners mouth, place it in the learners hand, etc) in such a way
that the learner demonstrates motivation for the item (e.g., grabs for the item, looks at the
item, etc) but will have a reduced inclination to scroll or sign at all.
If the learner should immediately demonstrate motivation move on to
probe for correct topography as described below.
If the learner does not demonstrate motivation for the reinforcer within
8 seconds, withdraw it, record No MO on the data sheet, and offer
the next reinforcer listed on the data sheet. You can probe again later in
the session if you think the MO may be strong now.
If the learner begins to scroll during this probe for motivation, guide
the learners hands in a neutral position. With the hands now in a
neutral position change the presentation of the reinforcer so that the
learners inclination to scroll is reduced (e.g., hold it up, place it to the
learners mouth, place it in the learners hand, etc). If the learner does
demonstrate appropriate motivation without scrolling at this point
move on to the step to probe for correct topography.
If the learner correctly signs for the reinforcer, deliver the reinforcer,
and record yes on the data sheet. When this occurs there is no need
to probe for correct topography.
Present the next reinforcer listed on the data sheet.

4. Probe for topography:

on the data sheet

listed on your data sheet.

Withdraw the reinforcer

Record NR for no response
Offer the next reinforcer

Once all the probes are completed for each reinforcer you will be ready to begin the teaching
session. Here are the steps to be used in this process:
For each presentation of the reinforcer check for an MO as described above.
2. Rotate the presentation of reinforcers across both motivational and topographical
classes.
3. Use the least amount of prompting necessary and therefore teach near errorlessly.
Fade prompts appropriately.
5. Try not to conduct more than 3 consecutive teaching trials of the same reinforcer.
Teaching can occur both in the NET and at the table.
When the teaching session is completed the instructor can complete a probe of the students
manding without the procedures in place. This will involve repeating the probe that was
completed in the first phase of the session.
Finally, the results of the probes will need to be graphed:
Graph the percentage of all 1st probes scored as yes.
Graph the percentage of all Last probes scored as yes
When calculating the percentage of both probes do not include No Mo in the
denominator.

DISCRIMINATION FIRST /LAST PROBE DATA SHEET

(Carbone Clinic)
Learner name: __________________________________________
Directions:
1.
2.
3.

List out all the reinforcers on the data sheet below.

Offer the reinforcer to the learner.
Record the learners response by circling one of the letters in row marked 1st, using the following key:
No MO = no motivation Y = correctly mands
Sc = scrolls/incorrect
NR= does not respond
w/ sign or vocal
4. Continue this for all of the reinforcers listed on the sheet.
5. At the end of the session repeat steps 2& 3 and record in row marked LAST.

Reinforcer

Date
Probe for MO

1st: No MO

Date

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Date

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for To

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Probe for MO

1st: No MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for To

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Probe for MO

1st: No MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for To

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Probe for MO

1st: No MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for To

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Probe for MO

1st: No MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for Top

Probe for MO

Probe for To

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

1st: No MO

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

Last: No MO Y

Sc NR

When to Do Mand Training

Although it is possible and even wise to run mand training sessions at particular times of the day,
mand training, particularly during its early phases, needs to be done when motivation is strong. If
a mand session is scheduled, the student may not present an adequate level of motivation to work
on mands targeted for instruction. In such a case, the first thing instructors will need to do is
contrive motivation. Remember that if one needs to work too hard to contrive motivation,
instructional targets may need to be changed or new items and activities will need to be
conditioned as reinforcers. The items chosen for mand training should be consistently motivating
to the student. Be careful, however, to also assess the degree to which issues of satiation and
habituation impede the maintenance of motivation.
The most effective instruction for training specific mands will occur through teaching when
natural opportunities present themselves. The opportunity to capture and contrive motivation can
occur as part of a classroom schedule, but keep in mind that there will be many times when the
opportunity to teach a mand is unscheduled. At such times, instructors need to be flexible and
teach when the opportunity presents itself. Timing mand training to occur when the student is in
the natural environment can reduce the need to provide generalization training and can capitalize
on the availability of naturally occurring motivation.
Like any other skill, learning to make requests takes practice. For some students, instructors will
need to provide hundreds of opportunities, if not thousands, to practice manding each day.
Counting the number of prompted mands provides a way of tracking how many mand trials have
been presented by instructors.
It will be important to consider the sequence of mand skills when planning instruction. Typically
students will learn to mand for items and activities before they learn formal mands for attention.
Mands that are prompted by the items presence will likely occur prior to mands that occur
without the item present.

The Importance of Interspersing Mand Trials

Some students with autism may have very few items or activities that will serve as reinforcers.
We have already discussed how to condition new reinforcers. The tendency, however, among
instructors new to mand training may be to teach a student only one or two mands and not
broaden the students range of mand behavior. In our work, we have noticed that a student who is
taught only one mand will begin to use that single mand for multiple purposes. It becomes what
is known as a generalized mand. For a well developed repertoire of mands to be established,
students will need to learn to use many topographies to control asking for many items and
events. At first, this means that students should be taught that one particular response topography
controls one and only one reinforcer. During early mand training instructors should actively
teach several mand responses correlated with several specific items. Care must be taken,
however, to insure that the student is not presented with too many mands at once. Learning too
many at one time can lead to frustration due to response discrimination demands. As a general
rule of thumb, it is best to use at least two or more different reinforcers whenever possible during
any mand training session. This will allow students to learn that each topography matches a
specific reinforcer. The sign or vocal word for candy will result in getting candy and the sign
or vocal word for cracker will result in getting cracker.
In mand sessions it is important to intersperse trials for different motivators to teach
discrimination. For early learners other reinforcers may also have to be interspersed to help
maintain interest and motivation. These items should be freely given without a mand response
requirement. Teaching students to emit discriminated mands is a central objective of early mand
training. In other words the student must learn to discriminate when to use what sign or vocal
word.
Another reason for interspersing various mand trials in any one session is to maintain the value
of the reinforcers. If only one preferred item is used to the exclusion of others, motivation for
manding for the item may fade due to variables related to satiation or habituation.

Preparing the Environment for Mand Training

In order to establish and maintain motivation, items that serve as reinforcement cannot be freely
accessible to the student. As we mentioned before, instructors will need to have control over
reinforcement availability. A central way of controlling access is through the careful ordering of
the physical environment. Teachers can set up classrooms so that the things a student likes can
only be reached through the intercession of an instructor. Some ways of doing this include
putting items on higher shelves, placing preferred toys in clear bins that may be difficult for the
student to open, and keeping edibles in clear multi-chambered boxes such as sewing boxes or
tackle boxes. Some teachers will wear aprons in which they can store small reinforcers for
immediate access. In many preschool classrooms that follow a developmental conceptual model,
play materials are kept available for student exploration. This is a beneficial arrangement for
typically developing children, but may work against children with a weak mand repertoire. The
free access to the play materials may compete with establishing opportunities for making
requests. The student will have no need to talk to anyone if there are so many things out that they
can get without ever interacting. This is especially true for students with autism who by
definition will show differences in their pattern of interaction. The recommendation then is to
sanitize the environment in order to increase the motivation for social opportunities to make
requests.

Establishing a Broad Mand Repertoire

As we stated earlier, even at the earliest phases of mand training it is important to actively teach
the student to mand for more than one or two items. A child who has learned to ask for only a
single item or activity may be prone to using the response to request many other things. In other
words a single response serves to control many reinforcers.
The skilled speaker of any language is able to emit a wide variety of requests. Therefore it is
important to establish a wide variety of mand skills for those who may present deficient mand
skills.
In our experience, we have observed a tendency in some teachers to reduce the intensity and
focus of mand training once a student has acquired five to ten mands. Often at this point the
student is more cooperative during instructional interactions because the value of social
interaction has been established. Teachers may then increase the amount of instruction related to
other verbal and non-verbal repertoires and reduce the overall emphasis on assisting the student
in broadening their mand repertoire. Likewise after ten or so mands, for many students with
autism it becomes a challenge to assess or condition new reinforcers to be used in the mand
frame.
If we consider the variety of mands that competent speakers use during daily interactions, it is
likely that most speakers use thousands of different mands and are able to recombine existing
response forms to make requests in novel situations. In the field of behavior analysis there are
several theories such as naming theory (Horne& Lowe, 1996) , stimulus equivalence theory
(Sidman, 1997), and relational frame theory (Hayes, et al 2003) that suggest with multiple
exemplar training, individuals will readily learn to transfer operant control across functions
without explicit training. In other words, a student who has learned many tacts, many mands, and
many listener responses and then is presented with a new response taught only under a single
form of control (for instance as a tact), will learn to use that response for other operant functions.
The point is that with broad repertoires comes transfer of stimulus control. Teaching a large
number of mands will allow the student to acquire new mands with little or no training. The
mand response forms may also then readily transfer to tacts and listener responses.

In order to accomplish teaching a wide variety of mands, instructors need to make sure
instruction is organized to keep several mands active at a time. Such organizational efforts will
include graphing the rate of mand acquisition. The graphs will need to be reviewed often. A
system of tracking mastered mands needs to be in place in order to maintain acquired skills.
Continue to schedule mand training as part of allotted instructional time. Post written cues in the
classroom so that staff is reminded to present mand opportunities throughout the course of
naturally occurring activities and as described earlier, Continue to assess and condition new
reinforcers.
Transitive motivative operations can be used to teach new mands that are related to reinforcers
that are currently under control of acquired mands. Recall that transitive motivative operations
involve altering the value of a stimulus through the presentation of some other stimulus.
Instructors can manipulate the environment to make some new condition valuable because of its
association with established reinforcers. A child who can request a cookie, may be motivated to
learn to request open if the cookie is offered in some container that cannot be accessed without
someone helping to open it.

Instructional Considerations Regarding Eye

Contact and Obtaining an Audience
Strategic mand training, as has been suggested, is a complex process that involves careful
attention to detail. Two areas that are intimately related to mand training and that have received
much attention in regards to interventions for students with autism are developing appropriate
eye contact and the initiation of social interaction (Carbone, 2007; Lovaas, 200_). This section
reflects a review of principles discussed by Dr. Vincent Carbone in his 2007 presentation on the
topic.
Eye contact and social initiation are behaviors that co-occur as part of the mand frame. Before an
individual emits a mand, they generally first engage in what is called an observational response.
In other words the student must look for what they need. The looking is reinforced by seeing
some aspect of the environment that may have a higher probability of providing reinforcement.
For mands, looking for a listener who can provide specific reinforcement is an early behavior in
a chain of responses that culminate in asking for the reinforcer. In other words, looking is
reinforced by seeing a listener. Seeing a listener serves as a discriminative stimulus that suggests
the availability of someone who can respond to the mand. If looking at the person results in that
person looking back, the mutual eye contact may typically evoke a mand. This relation is likely
shaped through experiences in which people who are looking at a listener are much more likely
to deliver reinforcers than those whose eye gaze is elsewhere.
There is some developmental literature that suggests that eye contact develops early in infancy. It
likely serves to regulate contact with caregivers (Stern, 1974, 1985). Children with autism often
show differences in the rate or quality of eye contact with others. Many students with autism do
not develop eye contact without specific training. Several techniques have been developed to
teach eye contact. Most famously has been the look at me program often used in some discrete
trial programs. While this program can clearly increase eye contact in children with autism, the
eye contact may not be readily used in other circumstances.
Dr. Vincent Carbone has recently outlined an analysis of the development of eye contact in
relation to the mand for children with autism (OBrian, et al., 2007). In the analysis Dr. Carbone

suggests that after repeated social experiences, the sight of the face and eyes of listeners become
conditioned as a reinforcer. In the situation wherein a transitive motivative operation is in place,
in other words the child wants something and needs someone else to deliver it, the eyes and face
of a listener reinforce the looking response and serve as a discriminative stimulus for a mand.
The child then is likely to emit a mand and the relation between speaker and listener (i.e. the eye
contact) is strengthened through the delivery of the reinforcer specified by the mand. To quote
Dr. Carbone, speakers learn that when a listener is making eye contact with them they are more
likely to get what they ask for. Therefore they will attempt to make eye contact before manding.
The analysis of eye contact presented here suggests that the process of mand training may well
serve to condition eye contact as a reinforcer. Through the use of time delay procedures, eye
contact can be shaped in the mand frame. This procedure can be used with students who do not
present problem behaviors related to slight delays in delivery of the reinforcer and who also have
developed a number of mands under the control of the item present. Additionally, running this
procedure is contraindicated for students who present frequently scrolled mands. To shape eye
contact in the mand frame through a time delay procedure, the following steps are recommended.
First gather a wide range of items or events that have served as reinforcers in the past and are
items that the student has learned to request but without eye contact. Present the items to the
student one at a time. If the student mands for the item and provides eye contact deliver the
reinforcer immediately. If the student emits the mand for the item without making eye contact,
withhold reinforcement until the student looks up at the eyes of the instructor. The withholding
of reinforcement will serve as a minimal extinction procedure which may then evoke a variety of
behaviors. One behavior that may be emitted is looking at the face of the instructor. For trials in
which the time delay was used, deliver less reinforcement. The magnitude of the reinforcer
delivered should decrease with longer intervals without eye contact. Data can be kept and
graphed for the percentage of mands that occur with immediate versus delayed eye contact.
Instructors should attend to the types of behavior that are emitted in the time delay period in
order to avoid inadvertently shaping responses that may later need to be eliminated such as
scrolling or repeatedly saying the mand.
Another related issue involves being sure that the student is emitting mands that are specific
rather than mands that become generalized requests for social attention in the form of praise. To
avoid a situation where the student emits mands in order to be praised for manding, avoid using

praise or social reinforcement with most mand trials. Remember that you want to establish that
the mand is reinforced by direct reinforcement for specified items. As an example of this process,
consider the student who asks for a cracker and the instructor praises that request by saying
good asking for crackers! the student may learn that whenever they ask for crackers or other
items, the staff cheer and praise. The student then may begin asking for things that are not related
to the motivation to obtain the item. Rather the mand is emitted in the motivative condition of
wanting staff to give attention or praise. Praising a student for manding is a natural tendency.
Concerned staff upon hearing a child emit a new mand for the first time will be very likely to
cheer. Although the cheering may further reinforce the mand behavior, it may simultaneously
slow down the process of correlating the mand response with a specific reinforcer. With that said,
in the earliest phases of mand training some degree of praise for manding in certain circumstance
may speed acquisition of manding, but staff should be aware that such praise will need to be
faded as a reinforcer as soon as possible so that it does not interfere with specific motivational
control of the response.

Generalizing Mands across Conditions, People,

and Exemplars
In our discussion of when to do mand training we presented the idea that mands will need to be
taught throughout the day and in situations where the motivation to obtain a reinforcer through
social contact is natural. There will be times when mands are acquired in quite specific
circumstances. For example, a student may learn to ask for a piece of candy only during a formal
mand session. The student may not readily learn to ask for candy at other times when the
opportunity to do so is available such as when a relative presents some candy at a family
gathering. Again, a student may be able to ask for a ball at recess when the skill was taught, but
may fail to ask for a ball when it is available on the playground after school. The student may
learn to ask for one particular ball, but then may fail to request a ball that varies by its size or
shape.
To assist the student in developing mands across people, settings, and exemplars, staff can
systematically vary these factors during the mand training process or, if such variability is not
immediately possible, transfer learning to other conditions once the mand is acquired.

Suggestions for Mand Generalization

1. Teach the child to ask for a variety of types of the same reinforcer, for instance,
establish various types of balls as reinforcers and have the child ask for each at different
times.
2. Provide lots of experience asking for the same reinforcer in a wide variety of locales:
have the student ask for a ball in the gym, on the playground, in the classroom at recess,
or on a trip to the park.
3. Set up situations wherein multiple people are able to provide the reinforcer, so that
sometimes the student can ask one person for the preferred item and the next time another
person.

View video K 1

Specific Protocols for Extending the Mand

Repertoire
So far in this training we have provided a detailed description of how to establish a mand
repertoire in students who have previously been unable to consistently ask for things when the
items are immediately present. We have stressed that such a repertoire needs to be broad, specific
and efficient. Additionally we stated that the student needs to learn to mand across a variety of
people, settings, and other conditions. The student needs to be able to mand without prompts
except for the item being present. When these achievements have been reached, however, the
process of mand training does not end. Rather, the student is now ready to begin learning a
variety of related mand skills including manding for attention, manding for items that are not
present and eventually manding for information. The remainder of this training will focus on
specific procedures related to mand skills beyond the basics. Lets start by reviewing a possible
sequence of skills related to the mand repertoire.

Extending the Mand Repertoire: Skill Sequence

Mand training doesnt stop after the child can ask for a few things. As noted early in this training,
we all ask for many things throughout the course of our day to day activities.
When teaching the mand, instructors need to consider when to introduce various specific mand
skills. The following chart provides one possible sequence for teaching mands. The skills shaded
in green represent skill items that are to be taught early in the mand training process and in
sequence from the top of the chart toward the bottom. The skills shaded in blue represent skill
items to be taught in sequence from top to bottom when the learner has acquired many exemplars
of the skills listed in the initial sequence. Finally when the student has acquired the intermediate
skills to strength, the areas shaded in lavender can be taught, again in sequence from top to
bottom. Keep in mind that this skill sequence represents only a guide for decision making, the
actual sequence for teaching individual students may vary based upon their rate of acquisition
and motivational issues both between and across skills.
Colored squares on this chart indicate skill areas to be actively taught at each level.
This skill sequence was derived from the authors experiences in the process of teaching mands
as well as from sequences presented in both the ABLLS (Partington, 2007; Partington
&Sundberg, 1998) and The VB-MAPP (Sundberg, unpublished manuscript). The sequence is
presented as a general guide to an instructional sequence; the actual sequence in which students
are taught may vary according to a number of variables.

MAND SEQUENCE CHART

Mand Skill Area
Establishing Social Interaction as Source of
Reinforcement: Critical throughout
Mands with Item/SD Present and Prompts
Mands with Item/SD Present
Extend Number of Items/Actions
Mands Across Instructors
Mands Across Settings
Peer to Peer Manding
Mands for Missing Items
Mands Solely under Control of MO
Establishes Audience Contact
Mands for Negation: Remove item or stop
activity
Mands for Assistance: specifics (actions) and
help
Mands for People
Mands for others to Attend to Specific Stimuli
(items, activities, etc)
Mands for others to Comment/Respond to
Actions, Features, Possessions of Speaker
2 component manding (action + noun, adjective
+ noun, action + adverb, action + action, noun
+ noun)
Multiple Component (more than 2 components)
Mands in Response to an MO related Question
with Yes, No
Mands with Prepositions
Mands with Pronouns
Manding for Peer Participation in Play or
Activities
Mands for Information
Mands for Future Events
Increasing Mean Length of Utterances to
Sharpen Audience Control (Autoclitics)
Conversational Mands
Mands for Sympathy and Emotional Support

Initial
Instruction

Intermediate
Instruction

Advanced
Instruction

In the following sections of this training manual we will describe the specific teaching
procedures for the various skill areas identified in the skill sequence chart.

Peer To Peer Manding

Generally children learn to enjoy the company of other children as they develop verbal
competencies in interacting with adults. Peer interactions become more important as children
become preschool age and remain a source of enjoyment and learning for most children
throughout the remainder of childhood. For children with autism, peer relations will often fail to
develop unless specifically taught. In order to teach interactions with peers as having value,
instructors must work to establish peers as conditioned reinforcers. This process will involve all
of the same steps involved in establishing adults as conditioned reinforcers. Some significant
differences are usually present, however. Other children may not be as willing to share
reinforcers with peers. Children often need to be taught to deliver things that are of value to
someone else. Indeed a key aspect of training peers to deliver reinforcers to other children will
involve use of reinforcement for the child who delivers items to a peer. At times it may be
appropriate to signal availability of reinforcement to the peer who is delivering the reinforcer
(this is known as a promise reinforcer) by prompting the student to give the reinforcer to the peer
while showing a reinforcer which will be immediately delivered upon the student successfully
delivering the item to the peer. Another consideration during the initial phase is to use
reinforcers that are valuable for the student who is being trained how to mand but not for the
student who is delivering the reinforcer. Once the peers are established as sources of
reinforcement, then instructors can begin teaching children to make requests to peers. The
process of peer to peer manding can be a fun process but quite often requires careful planning
and implementation. The way data is collected will vary depending on how many students are
involved. If the session involves training only one student how to mand, then data collection on
prompted and unprompted mands can be done in similar fashion as sessions conducted by
instructors. However, when multiple students are involved, then the use of data sheets that allow
for efficient data collection is critical.

Peer-to-Peer Manding: Probe and Frequency Data Sheet

Date:

Student 1:

Student 2:

Student 3:

Student 4:

Student 5:

Student 1:

Notes:

Probe Y N

Probe Y N

Probe Y N

Probe Y N

P:

P:

P:

P:

UP:
Notes:

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

P:

P:

P:

P:

UP:
Probe Y N

Probe Y N

UP:
Notes:

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

P:

P:

P:

P:

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

Probe Y N

UP:
Notes:

UP:
Probe Y N

P:

P:

P:

P:

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

UP:
Probe Y N

Probe Y N

UP:
Notes:

P:

P:

P:

P:

UP:

UP:

UP:

UP:

Student 2:

Student 3:

Student 4:

Student 5:

Probe Y N

Mark Y on probe if student requests from peer with no prompts. Tally total number of prompted
(P) and un-prompted (UP) mand for each student.
Shaded column on left represents student who initiated the mand, white row across top is student
who delivers reinforcement.

Mands for Missing Items

52

Pre-requisite mand skills: Student should have an established repertoire of a variety of mands
with item present as well as mands for actions and be able to mand across instructors and
settings.
Pre-requisite skills from other strands: Familiarity with tacting items and actions used in
various activities.
Motivative Operations: Mands for missing items necessarily involve transitive motivative
operations; the motivation for a specific reinforcer temporarily establishes the value of
something else as reinforcing that the student will be likely to mand for.
In order to teach mands for missing items the instructors will have to identify items and
activities that are reinforcing to the student and then establish motivation for something else that
the student will need to obtain the item or to complete a desired activity. For example, if a
student likes to eat peanut butter sandwiches and has previously learned to mand for the plate,
bread, peanut butter and the knife while items are present to make the sandwich, and the
instructor knows that the student wants to make a peanut butter sandwich; then the instructor can
have all the items out except for the knife (which will be valuable now because the student is
motivated to make the peanut butter sandwich). When it is time to use the knife and the
instructor confirms motivation for the missing knife (student is looking for knife in front of him
which is where it is typically located), then the teacher can prompt the mand for knife.)
Evocative effect considerations: what topographies will need to be shaped; which topographies
will need to be extinguished:
Instructors will need to be sure that completing the task is valuable to the extent that if some
component of the task is not present, it will evoke behaviors from the student that serve to get the
missing item.
Target response definition: Keep in mind that initially, the activities and/or items selected as
targets are those that involve items and activities that are highly motivating to the student. In
other words the targeted mands will be necessary to obtain items or complete activities that are
valuable to the student. However, in order to expand the repertoire of mands for missing items,
we will also need to teach students how to mand for items needed to complete tasks that may not
be reinforcing in and of themselves. In this case, the completion of the task, and not necessarily
the task itself, will need to serve as a reinforcer to the student. In other words the targeted mands
will be mands for items necessary to complete non-reinforcing activities, but the completion of
that activity has reinforcing value to the student. An example of this may be completing a
homework assignment that is not motivating in and of itself (but being done with it is surely a
good thing!) Having to do the homework will establish all things necessary for the task as
reinforcers (workbook, pencils, etc.)
Response topographies targeted for extinction: Instructors will need to make sure that error
responses do not contact reinforcement. This would include the student asking for an item that is
already in their possession. For example, it might be the case that for some students the
instructors attention is valuable and they learn that manding for missing items results in
obtaining the instructors attention. The student may then use the topographies being targeted for
missing items when they are motivated for the instructors attention or interaction and not
necessarily when they want or need a missing item. In these cases the instructors will need to
make sure these responses do not contact reinforcement.
53

Teaching Procedures:
Set up the situations that will establish the value of another item as a reinforcer because
of it being necessary to obtain the end reinforcer. Of course, you will need to ensure that
the missing item is not visible.
Prompting and prompt fading:
- Once the transitive motivative operation is in effect, the mand can be prompted with
the least intrusive prompt that will evoke the correct response. Some cases will
require a combination of prompts (i.e., showing the item and saying the name of the
item).
- Prompts are faded through the use of time delay procedures and or by gradually
fading the item (showing less of the item) and the mand form (using partial prompts).
Fading to MO control:
Ultimately the goal is to fade prompts so that the only source of control is the transitive
motivative operation (the motivation for an item because it is needed to obtain an item or
complete an activity).
Other Procedural considerations:
The following is a sample chart (Adapted from Dr. Vince Carbone) that can be helpful in
planning and collecting data for the mand sessions:
What is already
reinforcing to the
student?
Eating ice cream
Blowing bubbles
Completing work
to get praise from
teacher

What do I need to
do to establish the
value of
something else as
reinforcing?
Give student the
ice cream with no
spoon
Give student the
bubbles without the
wand
Ask student to
write the numbers
1-10 and give
paper but no pencil

What now
becomes valuable
as a reinforcer?

What response do
I need to prompt?

A spoon

Show spoon and

say spoon

The wand

Show wand and

say wand

A pencil

Show pencil and

say pencil

Data Collection:
Record P for
prompted and U
for unprompted

Data Collection:
- Cold probe of target mands for missing items
- Tally of prompted vs. unprompted mands per session or per day.
- Tally of untrained novel responses.
54

Graphing: Graph cumulative acquired targets for missing items as well as prompted vs.
unprompted mands for missing items.
Data based decision making:
Careful analysis of data and student responding will be necessary to make decisions such as
when and how to fade prompts.
Decisions regarding when to discontinue direct teaching of mands for information can be made
when the student demonstrates the ability to mand for missing items in novel untrained
situations, across settings, and instructors.

55

Development of the Pure Mand

According to Mark Sundberg (2005), A common problem faced by many children with autism
is that they are unable to mand for items that are not present. What Dr. Sundberg is referring to
is the challenge of teaching students to emit pure mands. A pure mand is a basic operant defined
by Skinner in Verbal Behavior as a a verbal operant in which the response is reinforced by
characteristic consequences and is therefore under the functional control of relevant conditions of
deprivation or aversive stimulation. Pure mands are not under the control of discriminative
stimuli such as the item being present or verbal prompts to mand (i.e., what do you want?). As
noted, in day to day interactions, mands are usually controlled by a variety of factors so that pure
mands are probably a relatively rare phenomena. Nonetheless, there are times when people ask
for things that are not present. Children with autism may be particularly prone to not developing
pure mands.
There has been research that addresses the issue of teaching spontaneous requesting behavior.
Most of the studies suggest use of a time delay procedure in fading prompts to teach spontaneity
of mands. (Halle, Marshall, & Spradlin, 1979; Halle, Baer, & Spradlin, 1981; Carr &
Kologinskym 1983; Charlop, Scheibman, & Thibodeau, 1985; Bennet, Gast, Wolery, & Schuster,
1986; Matson, Sevin, Frideley, & Love, 1990; Ingenmey & Van Houten, 1991; Charlop &
Trasowech, 1991; Matson, Sevn, Box & Francis, 1993
The goal of teaching spontaneous mands is to allow the student to mand without the item being
physically present. As we have consistently suggested, teaching the initial mand repertoire will
likely be facilitated by teaching in conditions when multiple components occur in the antecedent
condition including having the item present. Systematic procedures can now be implemented
which allow the fading of discriminative stimuli in the period antecedent to the mand.
The systematic procedures we will review have been outlined in research completed at the
Carbone Clinic in Valley Cottage, New York. (Adapted from Sweeney, et al. (2005).
As part of this process instructors will need to select reinforcers to be used in spontaneous mand
training that are likely to have a consistently strong motivative operation and are firmly in the
students mand repertoire when the item is present.
The first step is to conduct a 30 minute probe to determine the current degree to which the mand
is under control of motivative operations. The probe session will determine baseline levels of
spontaneous manding. If the item is under the control of the motivative operation (learner mands
for the item during 30 minute probe session) repeat probe session for 3 consecutive days. If the
student mands for the item on all three probe sessions, begin generalization and/or maintenance
procedures and start the same probe procedure with a new item.
If the learner does not mand for the item during the probe session, begin sessions that include a
time delay between trials to mand with item present. In other words, present the item to the
learner, and wait for the learner to mand for the item. Record the students mand on your data
sheet as prompted mand. Then put the item away and set a timer to begin a 2-minute interval. If
the learner mands for the item within the first 15 seconds, deliver the item and record the
response as a prompted mand on the data sheet. Again, restart the 2-minute interval. If the
learner mands for the item after 15 seconds, deliver the item and record the response as a
56

spontaneous mand. Again put the item away and restart the 2-minute interval. If the learner does
not mand for the item after 2 minutes pass, represent the item, wait for the learner to mand for
the item, and record the mand as prompted if it occurs. If the student is not motivated for the
item, record the trial as no motivation. Restart the timer for another 2-minute interval. Continue
this procedure throughout the session.
Prior to each training session a 30 minute probe for spontaneous manding will need to occur.
The training procedures would be discontinued for the target item when at the start of each
session the first mand for the item occurs within the probe session for three consecutive days in
which the student has motivation for the item.
Although the Sweeney, et.al. (2006) study focused on a constant duration of time delay interval,
it has been suggested based on a case study within the PA VB Project (Chamberlain, 2008) that
use of a gradually increasing time delay interval (from two minutes to longer intervals) may
further facilitate acquisition of spontaneous mands.

57

From Signed Mands to Vocal Mands

The review of these procedures is rather cursory. It is strongly suggested that when implementing
procedures to teach vocal responding that skilled professionals familiar with the analysis of
verbal behavior and speech and language development be included on the team.
As stated earlier, in the section on selection of an augmentative communication system, when
choosing a response form consideration should be given to how the system lends itself to transfer
to vocal verbal behavior. Sign language may be the most efficient augmentative system for
transference to vocal response forms. This is because of its topographical nature and sign
languages ability to produce functional control across operants; in other words, a sign can serve
mand, tact, and intraverbal functions. Several studies have suggested that sign language can
promote the development of vocal verbal behavior in some individuals with autism and
developmental disabilities (Mirenda & Erickson, 2000; Mirenda, 2003; Tincani, 2004).
However, there is a subset of children with autism for whom sign language may not facilitate
vocal production (Mirenda, 2003). In such cases it may be necessary to add other behavioral
interventions to increase the development of vocal responding.
In the PaTTAN Autism Initiative, Applied Behavior Analysis Supports, we have been guided by
the work of Dr. Vincent Carbone, et al. (2005, 2006) and the work of Tamara Kaspar, SLP/CCC,
BCBA in regards to teaching vocal responses to students who are using augmentative
communication. The work of Carbone and his collaborators has suggested four approaches to
teaching vocal responses. Those approaches include:
Stimulus-stimulus pairing: (pair vocal model with delivery of reinforcement)
Automatic Reinforcement Procedure
Differential reinforcement of vocal responding in the mand frame
Echoic training (Kaufman Apraxia procedures)
We will review only one of those procedures here, namely the differential reinforcement of vocal
responding in the mand frame.
The differential reinforcement of vocal responding involves a time-delay prompt procedure. An
opportunity to mand is presented and the instructor waits for several seconds before delivering a
prompt to give the learner the opportunity to emit the vocal response independently. If the
student responds in the interval before a prompt is given, differential reinforcement is delivered.
Less reinforcement is delivered if prompting is necessary. The basic steps in this process are:
Select target vocal response in relation to strong signed mands. The hierarchy of vocal
approximations leading to an adult form can be derived from inventories such as the
Kaufman Speech Praxis Treatment Kit for Children (Kaufman, 2005). Here is an example
of a hierarchy of sounds for shaping the vocal word block (from adult form at top, with
each successive level of simpler form below):
Block
Bu walk
Bwahk
Bahk
Bah
When sign occurs momentarily withhold reinforcement
Say the name of the reinforcer up to three times with a one second pause between each
presentation
58

Reinforce immediately delivering the item if a target approximation is produced

Reinforce the signed mand (with less reinforcement than if target vocal response
occurred) after the third presentation, even if a vocal approximation does not occur

Here is a treatment integrity checklist related to these procedures:

Procedural Integrity Checklist
Differential Reinforcement of Vocal Responding with Signed Mands
Instructor name: _________________

IOA check? yes no (with: ____________)

Date: __________________________

Student: ______________________

1. Did you make sure all mand items are present during the session? Yes
2. Did you have a variety of mand items available? Yes

No

No

3. Did you confirm that an MO is in place for teaching items? Yes

No

4. Did you check to be certain which mand items should be run as differential
reinforcement of vocal responding? Yes

No

5. Did you have the word shells available? Yes

No

6. Did you intersperse trials for items that are sign only for which we are not running
the differential reinforcement procedure? Yes

No

7. Are you clear on the exact pronunciation of each word shell? Yes

No

8. Did you hold up the item and get a clear an accurate sign response first? Yes
No
9. If Adam responds with the target vocal response, did you reinforce immediately
with greater quantity of reinforcer (better reinforcement?) Yes

No

10. If the target vocalization is not said immediately, did you present up to three times
before reinforcing (but reinforcement presentation with target response)? Yes

No

11. Did you record data on the last level of word shell consistently emitted on first
trial? Yes No
12. Did you remember to keep the sign strong? Yes No
13. Did you say the adult form when delivering the reinforcer? Yes No

Here is a data sheet for recording the students performance on trials during the differential
reinforcement of vocal responding with signed mands:

59

DIFFERENTIAL REINFORCEMENT OF VOCALIZATIONS

DURING VOCAL MANDING
Data Sheet developed at Carbone Clinic
Learner: _____________ Date:__________ Instructor: __________ Time: ________
Reinforcer

Prompt
Level
V

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

ITEM MO

What was
said
during
mand

Echoic 1

Echoic 2

Echoic 3

Echoic 4

Echoic 5

DIRECTIONS FOR RECORDING & GRAPHING VOCALIZATIONS

DURING VOCAL-MANDING
60

RECORDING:
For every mand the instructor will:
1. Record the reinforcer that the learner mands for (reinforcer column).
2. Record the prompt level necessary to evoke that response (prompt level column).
3. Record what the learner actually says (what was said during mand column).
a. If the vocalization during the vocal-mand is clear, deliver the reinforcer.
b. If the vocalization is not clear the instructor will then run up to 5 echoic attempts for
better articulation, recording exactly what the learner said (or not) for each.
i. If during the 5 echoic trials the learners articulation is better, the instructor
will differentially reinforce the learner depending on the trial. That is, if the
learner required all five echoic trials the instructor will reinforce but not as
much (magnitude) if the learner had achieved better parity during an earlier
trial. That is, the learner will receive more of the reinforcer if less echoic
trials were required.

GRAPHING:
At the end of the session the instructor will graph:
1. Spontaneous versus prompted mands.
a. Calculate the rate per minute for both mands that were prompted versus mands that where
spontaneous (solely under the control of the MO) by dividing the frequency for each by
the total number of minutes spent manding.
2. Overall prompt level needed to evoke all mands for that day.
a. After the session the instructor will calculate the most frequent prompt level needed for
all of the mands for that day and graph this prompt level on the graph.
3. Percentage of vocalizations that was intelligible on first mand attempt.
a. After the session the instructor will calculate the percentage of vocalizations that were
intelligible while manding by dividing the number of trials when the learner was clear
when manding on his/her first attempt (i.e., those trials where the learner mands for a
reinforcer and the vocalization was clear when the learner manded) by the total number
of mands for that day.
4. Percentage of vocalizations that improve during the echoic procedure.
a. After the session the instructor will calculate the percentage of vocalizations that
improved during the echoic procedure by dividing the number of trials where the
learners vocalization improved during any of the 5 echoic trials by the total number of
trials (i.e., one trial is counted for all five, if necessary) when the procedure was
implemented for that day.

Mands for Negation

61

Mand Target: Student will mand for negation when the motivation for the removal of an item or
the termination of an activity is present.
Pre-requisite mand skills: It is wise to begin teaching mands for negation when the student has
a strong established repertoire for a variety of mands with item present as well as mands for
actions, and is able to mand across instructors and settings. Exceptions can be made to teach
mands for negation earlier if it becomes necessary to teach these mands as a functional
replacement of problem behavior.
Pre-requisite skills from other strands: This skill will be more efficiently taught if the child is
able to easily echo what is said (for vocal learners) or, in the case of students who use sign
language, if they can readily imitate actions of others.
Motivative Operations:
Establishing Effect considerations and examples: Mands for negation are necessary when a
reflexive motivative operation (CMO-R) is in effect. Remember that a CMO-R, as described
earlier, serves to establish any event as a reinforcer that terminates a worsening condition and
will evoke any behavior that has been so reinforced (Michael, 1993). In order to effectively
teach mands for negation, instructors will need to make sure they are able to identify a variety of
aversive stimuli that would establish their removal as reinforcement when they are presented to
the student. In other words, the instructor needs to decide what stimuli will be used to present to
the student to establish its removal as reinforcing. This will necessarily involve using things the
student doesnt like at the time. For example, if a student dislikes listening to people sing, then
having someone sing near the student will establish the termination of singing as valuable,
therefore creating an opportunity to teach the student to mand for the person to stop singing,
dont sing, or quiet.
Evocative effect considerations: Students who have weak mand repertoires or language delays,
will sometimes develop other response topographies for manding for removal of aversive
stimuli, which can include problem behavior. Keep in mind, that when a reflexive motivative
operation is in place, it will evoke all behaviors that have been reinforced in the past by the
removal of the aversive stimuli. Because of this we need to pay careful attention to the target
response forms we select early in training. Initially, the response selected should require little
effort but be effective in terminating the aversive stimuli. For example, in the above mentioned
scenario, where a student dislikes to hear others sing; some may say it is not appropriate or polite
to teach the student to say stop singing as opposed to can you please lower your voice. But
if we take into consideration that this student is likely to begin screaming, hitting, or otherwise
engaging in problem behavior we then can note the need to train a response that will be easy to
produce or requires little effort. This will increase the likelihood of the target response and in
turn, will decrease the likelihood of problem behavior occurring.
Target response definition: The target response forms will be the specific words or signs that
result in termination of the aversive stimuli such as stop, Dont do that, or go away.
Again, keep in mind that we want to make the response requirement the least effortful as possible
during the initial phases. Eventually, a student may be able to learn to mand with more complex
response forms such as can you stop shaking the table please? We want to be careful to select
targets that will allow the student to contact the reinforcer. In other words, we need to select
targets for which we will be able to actually remove the aversive condition. So for example, it is
62

appropriate to teach a student to emit the response no when he is offered an edible item or toy
he dislikes. However, it is not appropriate to teach the student to emit the response no when
the aversive stimuli is a demand the student must comply with such as sitting at the table in a
chair to eat versus running around the room with a mouthful of food. In this later scenario, the
instructor would not be able to remove the aversive stimuli of the demand to sit.
Response topographies targeted for extinction: As with other mand skills, instructors will
need to make sure that error responses do not contact reinforcement. The instructor should not
remove the aversive condition if the student emits problem behavior or other inappropriate
responses. Of course, this must be done carefully so as to insure that no harm is done to the
student in any way. Extinction may also be used when the student uses a specific trained
topography such as no when in fact there is no motivation for the removal of aversive stimuli.
In this situation, the instructor should pause and then prompt the correct mand form. Instructors
will also need to be especially cautious with not reinforcing mands for the removal of aversive
stimuli, when the aversive stimuli involve demands that the student must comply with. Instead
teachers will need to pair compliance with dense schedules of reinforcement and teach
compliance errorlessly. It is also worth mentioning that this may not be the replacement behavior
we want to teach a student who frequently does not want to comply with instructional demands.
Teaching Procedures: The first step in teaching mands for negation is to identify a variety of
aversive stimuli that will allow establishing their removal as reinforcement. We then have to
select the response form or response forms to teach. There are situations in which a generalized
mand for removal of aversive stimuli is adequate to teach. Such as the case of a student who
presents with severe problem behavior when an aversive stimulus is present and who has limited
skills and may not be able to quickly acquire a variety of responses. Of course, teachers should
never present stimuli that will do harm to a student.
Once the aversive stimuli and response targets are selected, instructors will need to set up many
opportunities to teach the student to mand for negation. This will be done by contriving
situations in which the instructor presents, or has someone else present, the aversive stimuli. If
the motivation for removal of the item is confirmed, the instructor will immediately provide the
student with the least intrusive prompt necessary to evoke the target response.
Prompting and prompt fading: As is the case for teaching other types of mands, instructors
want to use the least intrusive prompt that will result in the correct target response and
systematically fade prompts by using transfer trials. Remember that transfer trials are trials that
follow prompted trials where the instructor uses a faded prompt or no prompt in an effort to get a
more independent response from the student.

Fading to MO control: The ultimate goal is to get the mand to occur solely under control of the
motivative operation, in this case the CMO-R.
Data Collection: Instructors should collect probe data for target responses as well as frequency
data for prompted vs. unprompted responses.
Graphing: Graphing of cumulative target mands as well as prompted vs. unprompted.
Data based decision making: Criteria for mastery will need to be set by instructors. In most
cases it prudent to set criteria for mastery at 3 consecutive correct probes.
63

64

Teaching Mands for Attention

There are multiple ways of teaching students to obtain a response from a potential listener. One
potential procedure to teach mands for attention would involve:

Set up situations wherein familiar adults in the classroom are prepared to deliver to the
student some valuable item or activity.

If possible, set up conditions that will signal to the student that the individual can provide
reinforcement. Wait to allow the opportunity for the student to attempt to engage in
behaviors that may obtain attention.

Prompt the student, if necessary, to go to the person.

The person with the reinforcer will then vary the trials in which they are attending to the
student. For roughly half of these trials, the instructor will immediately say something to
the effect of, Here, have a (some reinforcer). Be sure to vary the reinforcer used and to
be sure that the student does not know in advance what will be delivered. For the other
half of trials the person will ignore the student by engaging in conversation with someone
else or otherwise appearing to be distracted. The student can then be prompted to call the
persons name or tap the person or say excuse me to get attention before manding for
the item the person has for the student. The response topography selected will be
determined by the students pattern of skill development. The purpose of this step is to set
up conditions in which the student must make a discrimination of the conditions in which
manding for attention is necessary.

Be sure to use a wide range of reinforcers for this program.

If errors occur in this process a third person (NOT the person to whom the student is
requesting) must prompt the student. It will be best to identify both confederate and
prompter in advance.

If the student spontaneously mands for attention, be sure to provide attention and a mand
opportunity as quickly as possible. Remember the attention must be the reinforcer
(getting the attention makes available the second stimulus: mand opportunity.)

Shape this skill across people in the classroom.

65

Mands for People Protocol

Mand Target: The actual target mand for this skill is discriminately manding for a particular
people to respond with their attention serving as the reinforcer. For purposes of this protocol, the
mand response will take the form of saying the persons name with the reinforcer being the act of
the person looking at or talking to the student following the mand.
Pre-requisite mand skills: Prior to initiating training a student to call to other people by name,
the student should have a fairly well established ability to mand for a wide variety of items with
the item present. Other people, particularly those who are targeted to be the audience for these
mands will have to be established as conditioned reinforcers. It may be beneficial if the student
will has learned that specific individuals can control access to reinforcers in a differentiated
manner, in other words, in one circumstance a particular individual will be more likely to provide
a response to a mand than will some other individual.
Pre-requisite skills from other strands: The student will likely acquire the ability to mand
using anothers persons name if they have first learned the ability to respond as a listener when
the persons name is said. Often prior to teaching the person to mand for the person by name the
student is taught to go to the particular person when requested. It may also facilitate
acquisition of this skill if the student is able to tact the various people from whom he will be
taught to mand.
Motivative Operations:
Establishing Effect considerations and examples: how to motivate the student
The first step in establishing motivation will be to pair the person to be named as conditioned
reinforcers. In other words, the person to be called by name will need to first regularly deliver
reinforcement to the student without the requirement of saying the persons name. The person to
be named should have a history of readily delivering reinforcers following mands. Next the
person to be named will have to be established as a person who can serve as a particularly
effective reinforcer in certain conditions. This means that there needs to be established
conditions in the environment that make that persons attention valuable. In general, the persons
attention will become valuable as a result of some transitive motivative operation. As an
example, if a particular teacher is assigned to hand out snack on a certain day, and delivery of the
snack is contingent upon the student gaining the attention of the teacher, calling the teachers
name will be valuable. Hunger as a condition of deprivation establishes snack food as a
reinforcer. Since delivery of the snack has been paired with the teachers attention (meaning that
in the past the teachers direction of gaze occurred just prior to the teacher giving the snack), the
teachers gaze will serve as a conditioned reinforcer and the lack of teacher attention will evoke
any behavior that has resulted in that attention being given. Again the relation is basically that of
a transitive motivation operation. When initiating this instructional protocol it will be important
to establish a variety of circumstances in which saying the names of the targeted people will be
valuable. It is fairly important to make sure that the persons name does not become a defective
mand for an item rather than for attention. For example, if saying the persons name always
results in delivery of a piece of candy, saying the name of the person may exert control not
because the persons attention is important but rather because it is just another way to get candy.
Saying the persons name then will only occur when the child wants candy.
66

Evocative effect considerations: what topographies will need to be shaped; which

topographies will need to be extinguished
Target response definition:
The target response is an intelligible vocalization of the persons name or an accurate use of the
name sign. It is important that the student be taught to say several names of people. If only one
persons name is taught there is a slight risk that the name will serve as a generalized mand for
attention from many people. For example, the age and appearance of one of the authors of this
manual happened to be close in many characteristics to one young students grandfather. The
young student enjoyed interacting with the author in his role as a consultant because he often
played games the student enjoyed. Attention from the author was thus valuable. However, the
student manded for attention from the author by calling out Grandpa! The author, vainly of
course, did not respond because he did not associate himself with grand fatherliness. The name
used as a mand by this student, however, was clearly due to a generalization error. The student
needed to learn to name people discriminatively even though they may otherwise share certain
traits with other people for whom a naming response had already been learned.
Response topographies targeted for extinction:
During training it will be important that other forms of mands for attention, including tapping the
person from whom attention is valued, reaching, calling out with general vocal mands (i.e. hey,
you!) be put on extinction.
Teaching Procedures
Prompting and prompt fading:
In order to prompt a response, a third party to the interaction will be needed. The use of the
persons name as a mand for attention cannot be prompted by the person to be named since that
person will first have to attend to the student thus negating the purpose of the entire procedure.
Rather a third person (another instructor) will need to observe the student and prompt the student
to say the appropriate name when motivation for the persons attention is strong. In some
situations with students who can read, a textual prompt can be used (such as a name tag.) The
person providing the prompts will need to be sure to use the least intrusive level of prompt
necessary to evoke saying the name. The prompt should be delivered form close proximity and in
as subtle a fashion as possible. Prompts should not necessarily be provided immediately so that
the motivation for saying the persons name has an opportunity to build. The listener (the person
whose name will be said) will need to not respond to mands for attention other than their name.
Fading to MO control: It will be difficult to use transfer trials with this procedure. To fade
prompts, the instructor providing the prompts needs to fade the topography of the prompt to be
used. Echoic prompts can be faded to partial echoic responses. The readability of name tags can
be faded. In general to fade prompts, staff will need to provide many opportunities for students to
use the names of staff (and eventually peers) in situations where the attention of the named
person serves as a transitive motivative operation. Systematically fading prompts across trials
will likely be necessary.
67

Other Procedural considerations:

Data Collection: Mastery of this skill involves the spontaneous emitting of the target response in
situations where attention from the individual is valuable. Therefore daily data should be taken
based on a time delay procedure. First establish motivation for the persons attention and set an
interval (perhaps two minutes) in which no prompt will be used. Record whether the student
emits the target mand form in that interval. If so, mark on the data sheet that the mand of the
persons name occurred unprompted. If the student emits other mand forms, prompt the name
and reinforce but record the first mand as being a prompted mand. Be sure to record mands for
specific individuals as specific target items. When an individuals name is used appropriately in
the mand frame for three consecutive days that persons name can be considered mastered.
Keeping track of names and conditions in which appropriate mands occur on data sheet may be
helpful. Mastered names can be listed on a skills tracking sheet.
Graphing: Graph the number of names mastered as mands for attention.
Data based decision making: Note the rate of acquisition for each targeted name. If rate of
acquisition is slow consider altering procedures (for instance, adjusting motivative conditions or
prompting procedures.)

68

Expanding Length of Utterance: A Note on

Autoclitics and the Mand
A frequent concern of parents and teachers is that the student learns to talk but only uses one or a
few words at a time. This concern often results in attempts to expand the number of words a
child uses each time they speak. While it has been shown that the average length of words used
per utterance provides a fairly good estimate of a childs ability to use complex language,
working to extend the complexity of language too soon may result in the childs language
sounding odd.
Often the first consideration given to expanding length of utterance is related to what are termed
carrier phrases. Carrier phrases extend an utterance without necessarily altering the function of
the utterance. In other words if a child wants an apple and says apple they get the apple. If the
child says I want an apple they also get an apple. The functional relations are not necessarily
changed. However, different carrier phrases can have different effects on a listener. Saying give
me an apple versus I want an apple might alter the effects on a listener. Saying give me an
apple is likely a stronger request and may lead to the listener responding quicker but perhaps,
less kindly. Students do need to learn when it is appropriate to make a stronger request and when
a request should be softened in order to more effectively get the listener to respond to the mand.
If a student is only taught the carrier phrase I want a to expand their length of utterance
without regard for teaching other phrases that are responsive to the situations in which the mand
is posed, the childs language may appear to be quite odd. The carrier phrase in such
circumstances may sounds parroted, rote, and mechanical. Strongly reinforcing a student for use
of such carrier phases may lead to problems wherein the student responds when asked what is
it? with the name of the item and the carrier phrase for a mand I want a
B. F. Skinner described certain forms of verbal behavior as serving the purpose of describing
other verbal behavior to the listener. These responses are referred to in the book Verbal Behavior
as being autoclitic behavior. Autoclitic behavior is verbal behavior about verbal behavior. In the
case of the student who has learned to say give me an apple at times when a strong response
may be effective, the give me an cannot stand alone. Rather the phrase is about the mand for
an apple and suggests that the speaker is issuing a strong demand and that he or she should be
reinforced immediately. The student who says I want an apple also emits a behavior that
results in getting the apple, but once again the phrase, I want an... cannot stand alone. The
phrase suggests to the listener that the word apple is uttered as a request.
At this point many instructional programs have been developed to teach students to use carrier
phrases. Such programs often teach students to discriminatively use carrier phrases such as I
want a. and I see a. Given the cautions listed here, we would suggest avoiding training
carrier phrases as the first step in expanding length of utterance. It may be that as students
develop a broad repertoire of manding behavior (in other words they can ask for a large number
of items and actions) and the mand begins to come under control of motivative operations only
(pure mands), children will likely begin to use autoclitic control with very little direct training.
Children will sound more natural using an appropriate single word mand for a specific item than
they will if they use a multiple word carrier phrase that is not consistent with the controlling
variables (i.e., how badly they want the item, communicating that the statement is truly a mand,
etc.).
69

Although we are suggesting that it is probably not necessary to directly teach carrier phrases in
the mand frame, there are situations in which it is appropriate to teach a slightly expanded length
of utterance. Those times will be when the expanded utterance is critical in controlling specific
aspects of the reinforcer specified in the mand. In the situation where the child has the option of
asking for one of several balls to play with, there will, in some circumstances, be considerable
value in emitting mands that list particular characteristics of the specific ball that the student
wants. In such circumstances the word ball can serve a central part of the mand but will need
to be modified by descriptive characteristics, usually adjectives, which describe the ball. The
student can be taught to ask for the red ball or the big ball or the baseball or football.
The procedures for teaching such pivot word mands will be covered in the protocol section
below under the section on teaching multiple component mands.

70

Multiple Component Mand Protocol

Mand Target: Student will use multiple component mands to request specific items within a
single type of reinforcer. For instance the student will learn to ask for the big, green block
rather than just asking for a block. Multiple component mands can also involve adverb phrases
(push fast or push slow), quantity adjective phrases (two blocks, a little water, etc.)
Multiple component mands can also take the form of action-agent mands such as throw ball
versus throw boomerang or push truck versus pull train. Keep in mind that this protocol is
addressing multiple component mands (mands that require a response involving more than one
word), and the practitioner should not confuse this protocol with the issue of multiply controlled
mands which have more to do with prompting procedures and the role of discriminative stimuli
in evoking mands. The terms are similar and therefore may be easily confused.
Pre-requisite mand skills: The student will need to have developed the ability to emit efficient
mands when motivation is strong for general examples of the type of reinforcer. The student will
generally need to know how to ask for block before they are taught to ask for the square
block or the red block. The student will also likely need to have a variety of mands acquired
under the control of the item present.
Pre-requisite skills from other strands: Students may need to have developed the ability to tact
features of various mand items including the adjectives or adverbs to be discriminated in the
mand. In multiple component mands for actions, the student may need to have learned the
pertinent adverb forms by being able to tact aspects of various actions (It is moving fast, etc.).
Keep in mind that these prerequisites may not always be a necessary because the adjective and
adverb concepts may be able to be directly taught more efficiently in the mand frame when
motivation for the specific item or action is contingent upon appropriate discrimination of the
concept. One may learn to ask for a fast push on the swing when they are on the swing than if
they are asked to learn whether another student is swinging fast. In general, however, it is likely
that acquisition of multiple component manding will be speeded if the student has previously
learned the relevant adjective and adverbial concepts.
Motivative Operations:
Establishing Effect considerations and examples: how to motivate the student (this will
involve a list of ways of setting up the teaching condition) The teacher will need to contrive or
capture motivation not only for the general class of item or action, but also for the specific
characteristics that define the motivative conditions. In other words the teacher needs to be sure
that the student wants the specific type of item or wants the actions done in a very specific
fashion. In relation to this protocol, establishing motivation for the specific characteristics of
each item or action is the central task for teachers. Teachers need to be certain that they have
found ways of making the red ball more valuable than the green ball (perhaps the red ball
can be conditioned as the ball that arbitrarily is associated with certain fun games.) For some
reinforcers, such discriminations may be clearly evident for students before this protocol is
initiated. The student may consistently want the Thomas train and may have no interest in
other available toy trains (such as the wooden train). Therefore teaching the mand for the
Thomas train may be a straightforward option in relation to motivation in the circumstance
where multiple toy trains are available. Granted eventually the same student may be taught to
71

emit further multiple component mands for specific Thomas trains, such as the hooting
Thomas train, the Thomas train with the light, and so forth.
Evocative effect considerations: what topographies will need to be shaped; which
topographies will need to be extinguished: Teachers will need to determine in advance the
acceptable concept that will discriminate the item or action. If the student will ask for a red
ball, consideration will need to be given to avoiding the inadvertent teaching irrelevant
attributes. For instance, if the red ball being taught as a mand is also a big ball and the student
has already learned to mand for a big ball, the teacher will need to be sure that the items for
which there is motivation vary by the target characteristic (in this case color) and no other
characteristic. The point is, that when teaching red ball you have to be sure that big ball is
not also a mand that successfully discriminates the same ball for which there is motivation.
Eventually the student will need, of course, to learn to ask for specific items based on more than
one attribute such as asking for the big, red ball.
Target response definition: For this set of skills, if the teacher is able to contrive motivation for
specific attributes, then less consideration may be given to whether the particular adjectives or
adverbs are in the students repertoire. However, for many multiple component mands, teachers
may be well advised to select target responses that are already in the students repertoire as tacts
or as listener responses. It will also be prudent to select mand discriminations that are more
salient and less subtle (it is better to teach color, shape and/or size before one begins to teach
discriminated mands for more abstract qualities such as material composition (i.e., wood or
metal), flavors, or personal evaluations of the item (the nice one).
Response topographies targeted for extinction: As with most mand procedures, it is important
that attention be given to issues of response specificity and response generalization. Teachers
will need to be sure that the student mands for a ball in the condition when specificity is not of
concern and that the necessary specification of item quality is emitted when such quality is
appropriate. A student who asks for the big green ball at a time when they are motivated to
obtain any type of ball would probably sound rather odd. Such responses should not be
reinforced. Of course error responses should also be placed on extinction such as when the
student asks for the green ball when their motivation is known to be for the red ball.
Teaching Procedures
Prompting and prompt fading: In order to effectively prompt a multiple component
mand, the instructor will first need to be sure that the student is indeed motivated to obtain the
specific item with its specific characteristics. The actual prompting procedures are not unique to
this teaching protocol. In other words, use the prompt that is most effective in evoking the
response but avoid using prompts that are more intrusive than necessary. Also remember to
consider using prompts from operant forms that are already in the students repertoire: if the
student can tact the defining quality, presenting a tact prompt will be appropriate. For most
multiple component mands with a vocal response form, echoic prompts will be effective.
Fading to MO control: As with other mand forms, use of mand transfer trials should be
used to fade prompts with multiple component mands.
Other Procedural considerations: To shape clear control of multiple component mands,
it is probably best to teach the various adjectives and adverb phrases in relation to a pivot
mand. In this procedure various discriminating features are thought alternating around a single
72

mand type. For instance, the student is taught to mand for the red ball, the blue ball, the big
ball and the little ball. The qualifying control pivots around a single mand type. In structuring
a sequence of training specific skills for multiple component mands, it will eventually become
necessary to shift the pivot to the descriptor, in other words introducing mands for the red ball,
the red car, the red cup and so forth. Teach single pivot mands first and as the student
acquires skills, begin teaching three or more component mands.
Data Collection: Like other mand programs, staff will need to maintain a skill tracking sheet
which lists active teaching targets. Daily cold probe data should be taken on active targets. The
probe sheet should include a daily measure of whether the student declared a motivation for the
item. The standard mand data sheet for mand acquisition can be used for this purpose. Mastery
level performance may be set at three consecutive cold probe unprompted multiple component
mands for each target. Instructional staff should also maintain a list of multiple component
mands that occur outside of training conditions.
Graphing: Graph multiple component mands acquired.
Data based decision making: Review data daily; adjust programming and procedures as
indicated. Continue this program until the student begins to demonstrate the ability to combine
novel (untrained) multiple component mands that occur regularly outside of training conditions.

73

Mands for Information Protocol

A question is a mand which specifies verbal action. (Skinner, 1957)
Mand Target: Student will request information using what, where, who, whose, which, when,
why, how, can, does, and will questions.
Pre-requisite mand skills: These skills should NOT be taught until the child is spontaneously
manding for hundreds of different items/activities, actions, missing items, help, manding with
yes/no, and manding for the removal of aversives.
Pre-requisite skills from other strands: Because the reinforcement for a question is the
information, the student will need to have a well established repertoire of tacts as well as
following a variety of instructions related to people, places, adjectives, prepositions, and
pronouns. Consider, for example, the scenario in which a student cannot find his pencil and
therefore has motivation to get information regarding the location of his pencil. If the student
does not have a well established tact and listener responding repertoire, then the question where
is my pencil? leading to the response Its in the blue box under my desk may not lead to
reinforcement because the student may not be able to respond to information provided such as
in, blue box, or under.
Motivative Operations:
Establishing Effect considerations and examples:
Instructors will need to set up scenarios which involve the use of transitive motivative
operations. In other words, the student being motivated for one particular reinforcer will
temporarily alter the value of something else as a reinforcer (in this case information). So for
example, if it is time for lunch, and the students lunch box (which is currently valuable) is not in
its usual location, then information regarding the location of the lunch box becomes valuable,
therefore creating an opportunity to teach the mand where is my lunch box?
Instructors will need to pay careful attention to the specific type of information that is valuable in
order to effectively prompt the correct response. For example, when the names of people, places,
things, and actions are reinforcing, then what is the correct mand to prompt; where is used
when information about location is reinforcing; if it is the name of a specific person that is
reinforcing, then who is the target response; whose is used when the name of a person who
possesses something would be reinforcing; when, if information regarding time is reinforcing;
why, when information for the causes of events would be reinforcing; and how, when
information for instruction is reinforcing.
Evocative effect considerations:
Instructors need to make sure that motivation for the information is present and evokes behavior
that result in the student getting the information.

74

Target response definition: Instructors need to shape the specific topographies that lead to the
different types of information mentioned above.
Response topographies targeted for extinction: We need to make sure to extinguish error
responses, which include mands for information that occur when motivation for information is
not present. For example, a student may have been taught to mand for where is my lunch box?
when motivation for the lunch box was present and the student did not know the location of the
lunch box. This same student may then use where is my lunch box? when motivation for the
lunch box is present but the location is known (so information regarding the location is not of
value). In the later situation, the instructor will need to make sure that where is my lunch box?
is not reinforced by the lunch box since it is the wrong topography to use to obtain the lunch box.
Teaching Procedures
In order to teach mands for information there will need to be a significant amount of planning
and set-up involved. The reinforcement for the mand, in this case, is the information that will
lead to the end reinforcer, so instructors will need to pre-plan and set-up the situation so that
when the motivation for the information arises (or is contrived) and the response is given, then
the student should be able to use the information to gain access to the end reinforcer.
As with other mands it is critical to make sure motivation is present before prompting the mand
for information. Failure to do this may result in inadvertently reinforcing the topography
(question) under the wrong conditions (no motivation for information). So in the case of the
student who goes to retrieve his lunch box and does not find it in its usual location, the instructor
should wait for the student to show motivation for the information regarding location of the
lunch box, such as looking around for it in nearby locations, before prompting where is my
lunch box?
Procedures need to take into consideration that information is the reinforcement and not the item.
Avoid prompting mands for information that result in the student directly obtaining whatever is
desired. For instance, if the student is prompted to ask, where is the ball? Showing him a box
and saying, its in this box, here have it would serve as direct reinforcement rather than as
information as reinforcement.

Other Procedural considerations:

75

A similar chart to that used for planning sessions for mands for missing items can be used
for planning the teaching of mands for information:
(Adapted from Dr.Vincent Carbone)
What is
What do I need What now
already
to do to
becomes
reinforcing to
establish the
valuable as a
the student?
value of
reinforcer?
something else
as reinforcing?
Putting coat on Remove the
Location of
to o home
coat from
the coat
locker and hide
behind the
bookshelf

What
response do I
need to
prompt?

Data
Collection:
Record P for
prompted
and U for
unprompted

Where is my
coat?

Data Collection: Instructors should keep data on prompted and spontaneous mands for
information in contrived situations as well as in novel naturally occurring opportunities.
Graphing:
Graph prompted vs. spontaneous mands for each specific topography.
Data based decision making: Teaching of each specific target mand for information will need
to continue until the student is able to mand for information using the target response in novel
(non-trained) situations.

The Defective Mand: Troubleshooting Mand

Training
76

Many problems can go wrong in the process of training mands. While the historical tendency of
many educators has been to suggest that such problems are due to variables within the individual
learner (hes not trying he just doesnt like anything, etc.), the perspective promoted through
this training and in the field of behavior analysis suggests looking for causes of problems in the
relationship between the student and the environment.
The following list of possible barriers to students acquiring effective mand repertoires is derived
from the work of Dr. Mark Sundberg as provided in the Verbal Behavior-Milestones Assessment
for Program and Placement Planning (2007). Here are some of the barriers listed by Dr.
Sundberg:

Mand training is not part of the childs early language training history
The target response form is too difficult for the child
When a child has no or limited vocal behavior, sign language or PECS have not been
tried.
The response requirement is too high and weakens the relevant MO
There is no current MO in effect for the targeted item (e.g. satiation, weak to begin with)
The response is prompt bound by physical, echoic, imitative, or verbal stimuli
A nonverbal stimulus acquires control of the response and blocks MO control.
A verbal stimulus acquires control of the response and blocks MO control.
Motivation (MO) does not control the response form.
The child has weak MOs in general
Free or cheap access to reinforcers without manding
Self-stimulation or obsessive behaviors compete with other MOs.
A small group of mands has a strong history of reinforcement (e.g. candy, juice, skittles)
There is a limited availability of established imitative or echoic responses.
No variation in captured and contrived MOs.
Negative behavior functions as mand
Inappropriate mands become too strong and are intermittently reinforced.
The curriculum is poorly sequenced.
Fading out the object/non-verbal stimulus too soon.
A single response topography functions as the mand (e.g. more, please, that)
Cant establish different response topographies.
Scrolling gets reinforced.
Not enough mand trials are provided each day.
Poor audience control.
Mands only required and reinforced in a specific setting.
Generalization training is not provided.
Verbal information does not function as reinforcement for the child.
Manding does not come under the control of natural contingencies.
A history of punishment for attempts at manding.
Problem behaviors serve as mands
MO does not control response form
No MO for targeted item
Scrolling (multiple mand forms emitted when a single, specific mand form would be
more effective)
77

A single topography functions as mands for multiple reinforcers (i.e. child can say
more therefore never uses specific mands for items)
Self stimulatory behaviors compete with other MOs or have a lower response
requirement

78

Reducing Repetitive/Inappropriate Mands

Objective: To reduce repetitive or inappropriate mands to obtain items and activities by teaching
the appropriate mands.
Candidates for This Program: Students whose behavior has been determined to be a function
of obtaining items, activities, and attention (e.g., chip, chip, chip, chip, Can I want to have a
chip, Chipyes, etc.) when the teacher would deliver the reinforcer for appropriate asking.
Procedure during:
When the behavior occurs during daily routines:
1. When the repetitive response occurs immediately hold up your hand to signal the
unavailability of the manding opportunity to the learner.
2. The instructor should then begin to count to 5 silently. If the learner does not emit the
repetitive or inappropriate mand for the entire interval while you are counting, prompt
the mand and if the mand is emitted deliver the item.
3. If during the count interval, the learner continues to repetitively or inappropriately
mand, start your count over again. Continue this process until the learner has not
emitted the inappropriate/repetitive mand for the entire interval. However, if you
repeat the count for many trials without reaching the count then discontinue by
merely walking away without comment. The opportunity to mand is no longer
available to the learner. If the learner moves away from you insure their safety but do
not follow. If and when the student returns to you and again emits a repetitive or
inappropriate mand, again run the count procedure described.
4. Set up many opportunities per day for the child to practice this skill. Continue during
the process to teach appropriate mands for reinforcers.
5. Collect data on each manding opportunity using the attached data sheet.
Count the total number of appropriate mands daily.
Count the total number of appropriate mands.
Divide the total number of appropriate mands by the total number
of manding opportunities to get the percentage of daily appropriate
mands.

79

Appendix I: Data Systems and Data Forms

Contents:
1. Reinforcer Assessment Checklist
2. Reinforcer Survey
3. Preference Assessment: Single-Subject Format (Iwata)
4. Preference Assessment: Paired-Stimulus Format (Iwata)
5. Multiple Item Preference Assessment
6. Preference Assessment Observation Data Sheet
7. Conditioning Reinforcers Data Sheet
8. Pair/Mand Data Sheet
9. Mand Acquisition Data Sheet
10. Manding Probe and Rate Sheet
11. Mand Probe and Rate Directions
12. Mand Cumulative Graph
13. Mand Frequency Graph
14. Repeated Prompt Mand Data
15. ASL Mand Shaping Data Sheet
16. Topographical Mand Data Sheet
17. Differential Reinforcement of Vocalizations during Sign-Manding
18. Peer to Peer Manding
19. Peer to Peer Manding alternate version
Some forms for Treatment Integrity:
20. Pairing Checklist
21. Paring with Reinforcement Treatment Integrity
22. Vocal Mand Checklist
23. Sign Mand Checklist
24.
Teaching Manding to children with weak imitation
25.
Teaching Manding to children with good imitation
26.
Treatment Integrity for mand training vocal approximation
27.
Teaching Mands for Information

80

Appendix 2: A Brief Review of Some Conceptual

Issues Related to the Mand
In B.F. Skinners 1957 book, Verbal Behavior, Chapter 3 is entitled, The Mand. In that chapter,
Skinner carefully describes the verbal relations involved in mand responses.
Many common words may be descriptive of the mand relation. Some of the words are used to
describe grammatical or linguistic structures. The following list includes words related to the
mand function. The list is taken from Skinners1957 book:
Imperative mood
Commands
Requests
Entreaties
Demands
Prayers
Questions
Threats
Warnings
Advice
Permission
Calls to attention
Offers
Bargaining
Interjections
Vocatives
The role of the listener in the mand relation
When considering the mand, we must consider the behavior of the listener. Why would the
listener be predisposed to providing the reinforcement specified in the mand? Skinner notes that
the history of the listener is important: the listener must have a history of being reinforced for
responding to mands. This implies that we must teach those responsible for mand training to
provide adequate reinforcement when target mand forms occur. Although one would think that
reinforcing a child when they ask for something would occur naturally, this is not always the
case. Instructors will need to be sure to attend to student behavior, decide on what form of mand
will be accepted for reinforcement, and for some, learn how to not provide reinforcement for
inappropriate mands.
Hidden and Subtle Mands
The mand relation is clearest when it is in exclusive control of a response but may be effective
in combination with other kinds of variables. Saying I smell a cookie may sound primarily
like a tact (describing the sensation of the aroma) but may serve to increase the tendency of the
listener to offer a cookie in the condition when the speaker is hungry. Of course some non-vocal
81

behaviors may also guide the listeners response to this hidden mand (for example, an
expectant look while making the statement.) The important concept here is that what constitutes
a mand is not the form of the behavior, but rather its functional effect on the environment.
Mand Strength
The mand is not static behavior. Qualities of the mand behavior will vary dynamically depending
on circumstances prevailing both within the speaker and in the listener. The energy level at
which the mand is emitted may vary from very faint to very loud or from very slow to very fast.
If not immediately reinforced, mands may be repeated. The quality of a mand will be affected by
the listeners behavior; often speakers will alter the quality of a mand based on behaviors of the
listener antecedent to the mand. A mand will be softened if the listener is scowling or otherwise
appearing predisposed to a non-reinforcing response. The strength at which a mand is emitted
can tell the person concerned with training appropriate mands much about the motivation of the
student. A louder mand may suggest stronger motivation. Likewise, a quiet mand may suggest
the student has responded to the instructor as if the reinforcer may not be readily available or
otherwise indicate that the students motivation is not strong.
Stimulus Control
Pure mands occur when the student wants something and asks for it. Whether the child asks or
not is not dependent on any particular event such as the item being present or an adult providing
a reminder to ask. When discussing mands, the stimulating conditions which prevail when the
mand is emitted and reinforced do not enter into the definition of the mand. In other words, a
mand is defined by motivative variables, not by stimulus control relations. With that said, the
concept of stimulus control is important in relation to mand behavior. Keep in mind that although
Skinner allocated a significant portion of his book to describing pure verbal operants (those
under control of only one antecedent variable), he also stressed that most naturally occurring
verbal behavior is controlled by a variety of environmental variables. In other words almost all
naturally occurring verbal behavior is under the control of multiple variables within the
environment. In the process of training mands, it will be necessary to establish a wide variety of
events that serve to evoke the mand. For instance, early in training, the instructor may need to
cue the student to the availability of reinforcement by having the reinforcer present. The
instructor may actually have to tell the student to mand by issuing the mand what do you
want? Likewise an echoic prompt may partially control the students mand response. Such
supports allow the student to develop mand behavior, but do not insure that the child is able to
emit a pure mand: the student may not be able to ask for things when they are not present and no
one suggests they should ask. Teaching the child to ask under a wide variety of stimulus
conditions is important: the child needs to be able to ask for things when they are present and
when they are not present.
Although training pure mands involves the elimination of stimulus control, instructors
responsible for teaching mands must have a thorough understanding of the concepts and
principles related to stimulus control. Prompts are supplemental stimuli that increase the
likelihood that a particular response will be emitted. During instruction prompts are arranged by
the instructor. The instructor deliberately plans to fade prompts so that the target behavior will
occur without the additional help. In the process of teaching mands, prompts must be used.
Prompts for mands always involve adding a component of stimulus control. One then cannot
teach mands without the careful application of stimulus control procedures.
82

Use of stimulus control procedures to teach mands is not limited to teaching mands for items. In
order to prompt a mand for attention, for instance, echoic prompts may be used.
Mands Benefit the Speaker
Skinner has stressed that unlike other verbal operant behavior, the mand operates primarily for
the benefit of the speaker (p.41 VB 1957). It is only under conditions of deprivation or aversive
stimulation that mands will occur. The environmental changes which occur as the result of
effective manding serve to improve conditions for the speaker. The child who is chilly and asks
to go indoors benefits by being warmed. The student who does not know what to do on an
assignment (hopefully, a mildly aversive condition) gains information through asking for
clarification that may make the student more confident and thus less anxious. While other
functions of verbal behavior do result in reinforcement for the speaker, the reinforcement is nonspecific and the specific benefits are for the listener. For instance, when a person emits a tact,
lets say, its a ball the result of doing so will allow the listener to orient toward the ball and
respond appropriately. Likewise when an intraverbal is emitted, the benefit is primarily to the
listener (when asked, Did you play with a ball?, the speaker might respond, yes thus
providing information that is of benefit to the listener, in this case the person who initially asked
the question.)
The Extended Mand
Although the mand is initially acquired through the mediation of a listener (and the verbal
community as a whole), the conditions under which mands are later emitted may not involve
reinforcement delivered by a listener. Skinner notes that the mand stop serves to inhibit the
behavior of a variety of listeners. Due to these generally effective results, the speaker may
acquire a tendency to use stop under conditions wherein the cessation of movement would
have value. Saying stop as a shopping cart rolls away on the parking lot is unlikely to be
effective. Although the specific instance of behavior is unlikely to be reinforced, the response
may be strong because of its past history of effectiveness (other things have stopped when stop
was said.) Certain mands are shaped up through accidental reinforcement, such as the shouting at
a TV set go during a sporting event. The shouting of go cannot effect the behavior of the
athlete; however, on some intermittent basis the athlete is likely to go and thus reinforce the
response. The tendency to emit mands to the TV set will thus be maintained through the
intermittent delivery of serendipitous but quite accidental reinforcement. Mands shaped through
accidental reinforcement are referred to as superstitious mands. There are other mands that have
never had any effect as consequences and yet occur at some strength. These mands are often
similar by analogy to established mands. An example of these magical mands might include a
speaker saying darn it after an accident. Although the statement is unlikely to cause the
accident to be removed to some other place, the act of such asking is comparable to some types
of effective mands in other situations, for example, telling someone to go away.

83

Glossary
A-B-C- ~ An abbreviation for the words Antecedent- Behavior- Consequence. The
term is used to describe the relationship between what happens before a response
and what happens after a response. A-B-C relations are used to look for patterns in
the occurrence of a behavioral response and environmental events.
Acquisition ~ The process in which a student learns a new behavior through
reinforcement. Data collected on the number of trials, accuracy of responses
during training, and the length of time it takes for the skill to be learned informs
the interventionist as to whether the teaching procedures being used need to be
adjusted. Acquisition trials refer to specific instances of teaching in which new
skills are actively being taught.
Audience~ The discriminative stimuli that set the occasions on which verbal
behavior has consequences. Such stimuli are usually listeners that reinforce
speakers in a precise manner.
Autoclitic ~ A unit of verbal behavior that depends on other verbal behavior for its
occurrence. Autoclitics modify the effects of that other verbal behavior on the
listener.
Automatic reinforcement ~ Reinforcement that is not dependent upon other
people for its delivery. The response generates its own reinforcement. For
individuals with autism, the relative level of difficulty related to behaviors that
involve socially mediated reinforcement may make the occurrence of behaviors
that are maintained by automatic reinforcement (do not involve other people) more
frequent. Some examples of behaviors that are usually maintained by automatic
behavior include eating food, flicking ones fingers in front of a light, scratching an
itch.
Aversive Stimuli ~A stimulus that either decreases the frequency of a response if it
occurs as a consequence or increases the occurrence of behaviors that serve to
remove the stimulus (evokes escape responses) if it occurs as an antecedent. Note
that aversive stimuli are characterized not by their form but rather by their effect on
behavior.
84

Behavior ~ This term refers to some action made by an individual. It is the

movement of a person in their environment. Behavior is observable; it has physical
characteristics, it happens in relation to environmental events, and occurs
dynamically in relation to measures of time.
Behavior chain ~ A series of behavioral responses that are linked together so that
the reinforcement for one behavior serves as a discriminative stimulus for the next
behavior. The individual responses are chained together in this manner until some
ultimate reinforcing event occurs.
Card Sort Method ~ A method of organizing teaching materials within the
intensive teaching procedures for verbal behavior presented within this training.
The card sort method generally involves writing on 3 x 5 inch index cards the
discriminative stimulus to be presented to the student (often the side facing the
student will be a picture.) The cards are often shuffled to allow random
distribution. The cards are marked by verbal operant and whether the item is a
maintenance or teaching item. As the items are presented the cards are sorted into
correct and incorrect responses
Chaining ~ A teaching procedure wherein one attempts to link various simple
individual responses together to make one, longer complex behavior. Chaining
refers to teaching the individual responses that make up a behavior chain. Teaching
a student to complete the individual steps in sequence for setting a table is an
example of chaining.
Check or Probe Trial ~ A discrete trial that generally occur several trials after a
transfer trial. Check trials determine whether the response has been maintained
across other demands and other responses. In a check trial, a target skill is
presented without prompts.
Check Trial ~ Also referred to as a probe trial; a check trial is a discrete trial used
to determine if transfer of stimulus control to an unprompted condition has been
maintained following presentation of other trials (usually termed distractor trials).
In other words you check to see if the student can still demonstrate the skill
without being prompted after some different types of trials are presented.
85

Conditional discrimination~ A response in which the antecedent condition

involves two stimuli. Reinforcement is contingent upon responding only when both
stimuli occur. For instance, the student selects a picture of a cat when both the
picture of a cat and the verbal direction get cat are both present.
Conditioned Motivative Operation ~ A motivative operation that occurs in
relation to a learned or conditioned reinforcer. There are several types of CMO
including transitive motivative operation, reflexive motivative operation, and
surrogate motivative operation. CMOs do not involve satiation or deprivation.

Conditioned Motivative Operation-reflexive (CMO-r) ~ A motivative operation

that occurs when the presentation of a stimulus is correlated with an increase in the
value of removing the stimulus. Reflexive motivative operations are warning
signals. When a CMO-r is in effect, it leads to a student seeking negative reinforcer
(the removal of some event.) In other words when a situation suggests worsening
conditions, the value of escaping the situation increases and therefore the student
will engage in any behavior that leads to an end of the worsening condition. Some
examples of reflexive motivative operations might include, a student is asked to
perform a difficult task thus the student will likely be motivated to avoid the
teacher in order to get out of doing the task; an timer that is about to go off signals
that a student must move from some preferred activity to a lesser preferred task
will lead to the student trying to turn the timer off before it rings in order to avid
having to make the transition.
Conditioned Motivative Operation-Surrogate (CMO-s) ~ A motivative
operation that occurs upon presentation of a stimulus that in the past has been
paired with some other stimulus. The presentation of the first stimulus increases
the value of the second stimulus. For instance a student upon hearing a song from
some movie may be motivated to watch that movie and will therefore be more
likely to ask for the DVD or to look for the DVD.
Conditioned Motivative Operation-Transitive (CMO-t)~ A motivative
operation that occurs when the presentation of one stimulus is correlated with an
increase in the value of some other stimulus. In other words, the presentation of
86

some event leads to the student doing something to make another event occur.
Some examples might include, a student being asked to write their name will likely
make a pencil more valuable (and will also lead to the student looking for or asking
for a pencil); a student who is given a treat in a container that is difficult to open
will likely have a need to have the container opened (and will likely lead to the
student asking someone to open it.)
Conditioned Reinforcer ~ A stimuli that was previously neutral (has not had an
effect on the future probability of behavior) but has become a reinforcer through
being paired with other stimuli that already have reinforcing value. Conditioned
reinforcers are often referred to as learned reinforcers.
Consequence ~ Events which occur immediately following a particular response.
Consequences, like behavior, must be identified in observable terms. They are an
aspect of the physical and/or social environment. Consequent events may or may
not have behavior-altering properties; in other words consequences may increase
the future frequency of behavior, decrease the future frequency of behavior or have
no impact on the future frequency of behavior.
Contingency~ A dependent relationship between behavior and stimuli. It can be
stated in ifthen descriptions.
Continuous Schedule of Reinforcement ~ A schedule of reinforcement in which
every response is reinforced. Continuous schedules of reinforcement are associated
with rapid learning but are more prone to extinction.
Data ~ Information gathered to guide the decision-making progress or to describe
various phenomena including behavior. Data is obtained through the process of
observation and recording events. ABA relies upon data-based decision making.
Teaching and behavior management programs are based upon information that is
systematically gathered during the teaching/working process.
Data-Based Decision Making ~ Refers to the fact that teaching and behavior
management decisions are based upon information that is systematically gathered
during the teaching/ intervention process. Data-based decisions are best made by
reviewing a visual display of data. Changes in programming are based on some
87

predetermined set of decision rules. For instance, if no progress is seen in the data
path for three consecutive sessions, a change in the teaching procedures will be
made.
Delta Stimuli ~ A change in the environment that has been paired with the
unavailability of reinforcement. In non-technical words it is an antecedent that
signals that reinforcement is not available.
Deprivation ~ The period of time in which a primary or unlearned reinforcer has
not been available. Deprivation can be used to increase the potency of a reinforcer
by not delivering it to the individual for a period of time. Food, for one instance,
will become more valuable as a reinforcer if a person has not eaten for some time.
Contrast with satiation.
Differential reinforcement~ Reinforcement of some responses and not others.
Differential reinforcement is a critical component of the shaping process.
Dimensions of behavior~ Measurable aspects of behavior including rate, duration,
force or magnitude, latency, or inter-response time

Direct Instruction ~ A form of teaching that has its origins in behavioral

principles. Students are taught individually or in groups that are made up of
students at roughly the same academic level; there is scripted and fast-paced
presentation of materials; students respond as a group as well as individually; and
there is a very high degree of student-instructor interaction with error correction
and positive reinforcement for correct responding. There is an emphasis on very
well designed and researched modules that students must master before moving on
to the next level (see work by Engleman and Carnine).
Discrete Trial Teaching ~ Discrete trial teaching is the three-term contingency (AB-C) relationship as applied to teaching new skills. It is discrete because each
88

trial involves a clear presentation of a single response opportunity, clearly defined

response criteria, and set procedures for teaching consequences in the event that
the target response occurs or does not occur. Each trial is a separate attempt to
teach a new behavior or reinforce a previously learned behavior.
Discriminative Stimulus ( Sd )~ A stimulus that is conditioned to elicit a
particular response due to its history of being paired with the availability of
reinforcement. Discriminative stimuli occur in the antecedent condition and are
associated with the availability of reinforcement. For example, a refrigerator door
may be stimulus that evokes opening the refrigerator door behavior because the
refrigerator likely contains food that serves as a reinforcer.
Distracter Trial ~ A discrete trial that occurs between a teaching or transfer trial
and either a check trial or a second teaching trial. Distracter trials are used in order
to assist the child in maintaining a response across other demands and other
responses. Distracter trials generally involve other type of responses than the item
that is being taught. Check trials are most often easy trials.
Easy trial ~ Any trial on which a student performs without a prompt. Easy trials
involve use of a 2-3 second time delay procedure for the model presented in this
training.
Echoic ~ Verbal behavior wherein a verbal stimulus evokes a verbal response and
the stimulus and response share point to point correspondence. In other words, the
response echoes or duplicates the stimulus.
Edible Reinforcers ~ Food items that may be used as reinforcers in teaching
programs. Edible reinforcers are just one class of reinforcer that may be used in a
teaching program. Edible reinforcers are usually used in conjunction with other
reinforcers such as verbal praise, attention, and tokens, and are faded as the student
acquires other reinforcers.
Elicit ~ A term associated with respondent or classical conditioning. Refers to the
effect of stimuli which are followed by reflexive behaviors.

89

Emit~ A term associated with operant conditioning. Refers to the act of an

organism behaving as a result of past consequences.
Error Correction ~ Procedures that are used when a student responds incorrectly,
or is non-responsive. There are multiple error correction procedures. In the error
correction procedure presented in this training, the direction is repeated, followed
by a zero second prompt for the child to respond correctly. Error correction trials
are then followed by a transfer trial.
Errorless Learning ~ The process by which student errors are reduced or
eliminated by systematically applying prompting and prompt fading strategies.
Students are provided prompts that insure an error does not occur and then learning
is transferred to an unprompted trial. In general, the student is prevented from
making an incorrect response in the first place. This increases the probability that
the student will have more opportunities to make a correct response and receive
reinforcement.
Extinction~ A decrease or cessation in the frequency of responding due to a
cessation in the occurrence of reinforcement. It is the process by which a response
in no longer paired with presentation of a reinforcing event. Extinction is a
schedule of reinforcement in which the behavior is never reinforced.
Extinction Burst ~ A phenomenon wherein the frequency of a behavior increases
for some period (usually a brief period) following a period of time in which the
behavior is not reinforced. For problem behavior reduction programs that use
extinction, the possibility of an extinctin burst must be planned for. During the
burst, the behavior will temporarily increase in frequency, magnitude, and
variability.
Fading ~ A gradual decrease in the observable aspects of a stimulus. Fading is
often used as procedure to reduce the level of prompt during instruction.
Fluency ~ A characteristic of responses in which accurate responses are emitted at
a relatively high rate. Fluency is a measure of accuracy and speed. The degree to
which a skill is fluent may predict the degree to which the skill will be retained and
90

generalized, how strongly the response will occur over time, and the overall ease of
responding
Frequency ~ Refers to the number of target responses counted. For example, the
student made seven initiations to his peers.
Functional Analysis ~ A process in which the class of reinforcers maintaining a
particular response or response class is identified. Functional analysis helps to
answer questions such as why does that response occur? or under what
conditions is that response more likely?
Generalization ~ Speaking broadly, generalization refers to variation in either
response or setting. We strive to generalize across time, setting, people, and
instructional materials.
Graphing ~ The representation of data on a grid. When behaviors are represented
on a graph they allow visual analysis. In other words the person viewing the graph
can easily make a judgment regarding changes in a pattern of behavior over time.
Graphs make for easy summarization of trend, level, and variability in behavior.
Graphs are used to assess progress in learning and to make teaching/ treatment
decisions.
Hard trial ~ Any trial on which a student has not been able to perform without a
prompt. Hard trials involve use of a 0 second time delay procedure for the model
presented in this training.
Imitation ~ To duplicate observed behavior. Motor imitation involves duplicating
another persons actions. Echoic behavior is a verbal form of imitation.
Incidental Teaching ~ Incidental teaching refers to teaching that involves
naturally occurring opportunities to teach, often with student-initiated activities.
Incidental teaching, while often involving systematic teacher responses to student
behavior, is not carefully planned or scripted.

91

Intermittent Schedule of reinforcement ~ A schedule of reinforcement in which

each not all responses are reinforced. Reinforcement is provided only to some
instances of the response.
Inter-trial Interval~ A measure of temporal duration between the presentation of
one trial and the presentation of the next trial. In other words, it is a measure of
how much time occurs between trials.
Intraverbal ~ Verbal behavior in which a verbal stimulus evokes a verbal response
and the stimulus and response do not share point to point correspondence. In other
words the response is not the same as the stimulus. Common names for intraverbal
responses may include answering questions, word- associations, fill-ins,
conversational responses, etc.
Latency ~ A measure of time between the presentation of a discriminative stimulus
and the occurrence of a response or between the occurrence of a response and the
presentation of a consequent stimulus (either a reinforcement or punishment.)
Listener~ A person who responds to verbal behavior
Listener Response ~ Behavior of a person responding to another persons verbal
behavior. Listener responses are acquired through experience and are often highly
specified. Listener responses are often called receptive language.
Maintenance Trial~ Discrete trials involving a stimulus that is associated with a
response that has been correctly emitted by the student on past trials. It is a trial for
a skill that is already acquired versus a skill that is still being taught.
Maintenance trials are run in order to help the student learn to consistently give the
response (in common terms, to help the student remember the response.)
Mand ~ Verbal behavior wherein a motivative operation occurs in the antecedent
condition, the response specifies its reinforcer, and the response is maintained by
consequences that involve direct reinforcement (delivery of what has been
specified). Common terms for mands might include ask, demand, request,
command, question, etc.
92

Matching law ~ A term for the relationship between the probability of a response
and the degree to which that response has been reinforced. Specifically, during
concurrent schedules of reinforcement, a behavior will be emitted at a ratio that is
equivalent to its schedule of reinforcement. Some characteristics of reinforcement
that can effect response probability are:
Value of reinforcement~ The degree to which a stimulus is likely to evoke
behaviors that result in the delivery or presence of that stimulus. In other words,
the strength of the motivative operation in relation to a particular reinforcer will
predict the likelihood of a response. For instance, if a person is thirsty, they will be
more likely to engage in behaviors that are reinforced by drinking than they will be
to engage in behaviors that are reinforced by food.
Response effort~ If two responses can result in reinforcement, the one that
involves less physical effort will be more probable. For instance, if one is
motivated to change channels on a TV, pressing the remote control button will be
more likely than walking to the set to press the control panel button.

Ratio of reinforcement~ If two responses result in the same reinforcer, but one
response obtains reinforcers more often, that response will be more likely to occur.
For instance, although a person may sometimes be offered food at a friends house,
if the person is really hungry they will be more likely to go to a store or a
restaurant where food is sure to be available.
Magnitude of reinforcement~ If two responses both access the same reinforcer,
but one response obtains a greater amount of the reinforcer, that response will be
more likely. For instance, if a high school student has a chance to do odd jobs at
one home and be paid $5.00 or to do the same odd jobs at another home for $7.00
and all else is equal, the student will be more likely to work at the home that pays
$7.00.
Immediacy of reinforcement~ If two responses both access the same reinforcer,
but one response is delivered more immediately following the response, that
response will be more likely. For instance, if a child asks both his mother and his
93

father for a ball; the father tells the child to wait and then later gives the ball to the
child and plays with the child. The mother on the other hand immediately gives
the ball and plays with child. The child will be more likely to ask the mother for
the ball in the future.
Matching to Sample~ A response involving a conditional discrimination. In the
presence of one stimulus the student selects another stimulus which shares some or
all characteristics.
Most-to-least prompting ~ This term refers to a prompting and prompt fading
strategy wherein one begins prompting at a level guaranteed to get the response to
occur. You would fade the intensity of the prompt over time to avoid prompt
dependency.
Motivative Operation ~ Sometimes abbreviated as MO, this term refers to an
alteration of the environment that affects the power of other stimuli to serve as
reinforcers and antecedent stimuli. Motivative operations alter the value of stimuli
that serve as reinforcers and also evokes any behavior that has in the past been
reinforced by those stimuli. Motivation in a behavioral model lies in the
environment (for instance, a particular reinforcer may be valuable not because the
student wants it but rather because the student has not had access to the item for
a period of time). The value of events that may serve as reinforcers will vary
according to the current strength of the motivative operation.
Naming Theory ~ According to Horne and Lowe (1996), naming is a circular
relation among an object (or event), a particular speaker behavior, and the
corresponding listener behavior.
Natural Environment Teaching ~ Sometimes abbreviated as NET, this term
refers to a teaching approach where the childs current activities and interests
determine teaching strategies.
Negative reinforcement ~ A stimulus is removed following a given target
behavior, this leads to an increase in the future probability of that target behavior.
Describes a relationship between events in which the rate of a behaviors
occurrence increases when some (usually aversive or unpleasant) environmental
94

condition is removed or reduced in intensity. It leads to an increase in the future

probability of a given behavior. For example, if a student tantrums after the teacher
asked him/her to perform a task, and the teacher withdraws the request as a result
of the tantrum it is negative reinforcement. In such a case, the teacher has
accidentally negatively reinforced the tantrum and unwittingly made it more likely
to happen in the future.
Neutral Stimuli ~ A change in the environment that has no effect on the future
frequency of behavior.
Operant Analysis ~ The process of classifying the contingencies between
antecedent, response, and consequence. In operant analysis, the behavior of
concern is maintained through its effect on the immediate environment. An
analysis of the way behavior is changed through its consequences.
Pairing ~ The repeated occurrence of two stimuli close in time. In operant
conditioning, when two stimuli are paired, they often develop similar effects on
behavior (one stimuli may become a conditioned reinforcer.) Pairing can also occur
in respondent conditioning.
Parity ~ The automatic shaping of verbal responses to match those of the other
speakers in their verbal community. The speaker produces verbal behavior similar
to the other speakers, mediated by their own repertoire as listener.
Positive reinforcement ~ A stimulus is presented following a given target
behavior, this leads to an increase in the future probability of that target behavior.
As with other consequences, it is important to remember that a stimulus is only a
positive reinforcer if, when presented, it leads to an increase in the future
probability of the behavior.

Precision Teaching ~A method of instruction in which precise teaching behaviors

and instructional methodologies are applied and continuously monitored and
adjusted based on student performance. Students often self-monitor progress. Data
95

in precision teaching programs are recorded and displayed on the standard

celeration chart developed by Ogden Lindsley. Rate measurement is the central
data in precision teaching.
Preference (Reinforcer) Assessment ~ A procedure to identify stimuli that may
serve as reinforcers. Items or events are presented and the students response is
observed and recorded. Items in which the student approaches, takes or remains in
contact with for longer periods of time are likely to be stimuli that can serve as
reinforcement. Some preference inventories are completed through third party
rating scales, however, such rating scales usually are less reliable than
observational preference assessments.
Primary reinforcer ~ A reinforcer that is effective without any prior learning (i.e.
is in-born). Also known as unlearned reinforcer or unconditioned reinforcer.
Probe ~ A brief assessment of learning for a specific teaching target. Generally in
a probe an unprompted learning trial is presented and the students response is
recorded. A cold probe involves presenting the probe trial following a period in
which the student has not had exposure to the teaching procedure. Generally cold
probes are recorded on a students first response to an item each day.
Prompts ~ Prompts are ancillary antecedent stimuli that insure that a particular
response will occur. In other words, prompts make the occurrence of the target
behavior more likely. When prompts are used, procedures to fade the prompts
need to be implemented. In the model proposed in this training, transfer trials are
used to fade prompts. During instruction, the prompt occurs as part of the
antecedent condition.
Punishment ~ A stimulus that occurs immediately following a particular response
that decreases the future probability of that response in similar conditions.
Punishment if a consequence that decreases the frequency of the behavior that
precedes it. Punishment, like reinforcement, is not defined by its form but rather by
its effect on behavior.
Rate ~ A measure of frequency across a specific period of time. Rate is usually
recorded in number of responses within a set period of time as in number of
96

responses per minute. For example, a child initiates interactions with other
children seven times per hour.
Reinforcement ~ A consequence that increases the future probability of the
behavior that immediately preceded it. The only way a reinforcer can be identified
is by the effect that the stimulus has on future behavior.
Response ~ Another term for behavior, often used to describe the occurrence of a
behavior in relation to particular environmental events (stimuli)
Response Form ~ The movements that are used to form a response; the
dimensions of particular behavior
Response product ~ The changes in the environment that occur as a result of a
behavior. Movement, for instance may produce a visual response product ( an
observer can see the movements); speech may produce an auditory response
product ( a listener can hear what is spoken.) Generally in verbal behavior the
listener responds to the response products of a speaker and not the actual behavior.
Run-Through ~ A series of discrete trials that are run consecutively in which the
consequence of one trial is reinforced by the presentation of the next trial. The
consecutive trials serve as reinforcement because the student has been thought that
cooperative performance leads to more frequent reinforcement. A run through ends
with the last trial (usually a check trial) followed by delivery of a reinforcing item
or activity.
Satiation ~ A physiological phenomena in which contact with a reinforcer is
extinguished due to a level of ingestion that does not allow further absorption. In
common terms, satiation is synonymous with being full. Although some people
describe the weakening effect of time spent interacting with a conditioned
reinforcer (for example, a child getting tired of playing with a toy) as satiation,
such weakening effects are better described as habituation.
Selection-Based Verbal Behavior ~ Verbal behavior in which the response varies
only through the nature of a selected stimulus. The general topography of the
behavior emitted does not vary. Selection based verbal behavior includes picture
97

selection systems and augmentative devices in which the speaker touches icons on
a screen.
Schedule of Reinforcement ~ Schedules of reinforcement specify how often
particular reinforcers will result in reinforcement. Remember that not every
response needs to be reinforced in order to affect future frequency of responding.
Both planned and naturally occurring schedules of reinforcement can be described
in terms of how much time passes before availability of reinforcement (interval
schedules) or how many responses must occur before availability of reinforcement
(ratio schedules)
Shaping ~ Process used to create new behavior by differentially reinforcing
successive approximations to a desired behavior (the target response). Shaping
involve defining the sequences of movement necessary to complete some target
behavior. At first gross approximations to the target behavior are reinforced, then
those responses are put on extinction (not reinforced) and only slightly better
approximations to the desired behavior are reinforced. This process continues until
only the final target behavior is reinforced.
Social reinforcers ~ Reinforcers that consist of interactions with other individuals
(for example, high five, thumbs up, wink).
Socially mediated reinforcers~ Any reinforcer that is delivered as the result of
actions of another person. Socially mediated reinforcement can be contrasted with
automatic reinforcement.
Speaker~ The person who emits verbal behavior.
Tact ~ Verbal behavior wherein a non-verbal stimulus evokes a verbal response.
The behavior is reinforced by non-specific events. Common terms for tacts
includes labeling or naming.
Target Behavior ~ A response that is selected to be changed in some manner as
part of a teaching program. It is pattern of behavior we expect to be demonstrated a
result of our teaching. The target behavior may be chosen in order to increase its
frequency (an acquisition, fluency or maintenance program) or to decrease its
98

frequency (a reductive program for problem behavior.) Target behaviors must be

specifically defined in observable terms (as physical, measurable behaviors.)
Task Analysis ~ Used most often in discussions of chaining, this is a written list
specifying the particular steps (series of responses) that must be completed
(emitted) in order to perform a particular behavior. For instance, the steps in hand
washing may be broken down into a sequence of individual behaviors such as
pushing up long sleeves, turning on faucets, adjusting temperature level, wetting
hands, putting soap on hands, etc. Depending on the nature of the task and the
students learning history, one task may be analyzed to 10 steps or a 100 steps.

Teaching Trial ~ A discrete trial for a target behavior that is selected for
acquisition (as opposed to a maintenance or fluency trial). In other words, a trial to
teach a new skill. In the model proposed in this training a teaching trial involves
an immediately prompted response (see 0 second prompt)
Time Delay ~ A time based procedure for fading prompts. The interval is set to
determine the latency between presentation of a discriminative stimulus and
presentation of a prompt. In other a child is given a direction and a period of time
is set in which no prompt will be given. If the behavior does not occur within that
time interval, the prompt is given. A graduated time delay procedure is one in
which the interval between the discriminative stimulus and the prompt is gradually
changed as the student is presented with teaching trials. Usually the interval is
lengthened as the student has success responding.
0 second time delay ~ This refers to an immediate prompt. It is an example of a
time delay interval within a graduated time delay procedure in which there is no
interval of time between the presentation of a discriminative stimulus and a
prompt. It is usually the first step in a graduated time delay procedure. In the
prompt fading/errorless teaching model presented in this training a 0 second time
delay occurs on trials that involve teaching a new skill or on trials in which
previous performance required a prompt (a hard trial)
2-3 second time delay ~ This refers to a delay of 2 to 3 seconds after a direction is
given before a prompt is delivered. It is an example of a time delay interval within
99

a graduated time delay procedure in which there is a 2-3 second interval of time
between the presentation of a discriminative stimulus and a prompt. Transfer trials
are usually 2-3 second time delay trials. In the prompt fading/errorless teaching
model presented in this training a 2-3 second time delay occurs on trials that
involve presentation of task on which the student has previously performed without
prompt (an easy trial)
Time-out from Positive Reinforcement ~ Often called time out for short. The
general idea of time out is that a given reinforcer is removed for a short period of
time, contingent upon some inappropriate behavior being emitted by an individual.
While this can take the form of an individual having to go to a different setting (for
example, the common time out chair), time out need not take this form, and there
are may be reasons to avoid this use (e.g., accidentally reinforcing with attention,
or accidentally reinforcing avoidance behavior). Time out can be accomplished
within the given setting (e.g., a T.V. set is turned off for ten seconds following
inappropriate hand flapping while watching). Although various formal procedures
have been developed, any time reinforcement is not available for a period of time
following an instance of problem behavior, time out is being used.
Topography ~. A description of the physical form of the behavior. Topographical
descriptions often include describing what the behavior looks like: a description
of the muscles used, the force of the movements, the time duration of the
movements, the direction of the movements and so forth.
Topographical Verbal Behavior~ Verbal behavior that varies in the form used
across responses. The direction, force, duration, etc. of the action of the muscles
used varies across responses. Topographical verbal behavior includes spoken
language and sign language.
Transfer Trial ~ An unprompted trial that follows a prompted trial. The word
transfer refers to the technical description of the transfer of stimulus control. In
other words in the prompted trial both the environmental stimulus that controls the
behavior (for instance a verbal direction) and the prompt (for instance a gesture
such as a point) precede the response (in this case, the student following the
direction). The transfer trial involves fading the prompt (eliminating the gesture or
fading how much gesture is used) on the trial immediately following a prompted
100

trial. Transfer trials transfer stimulus control to more independent levels of

response.
Unconditioned Motivative Operation (UMO) ~ a motivative operation that
occurs in relation to an unlearned reinforcer. UMOs usually involve satiation and
deprivation.
Variable Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement ~ An intermittent schedule of
reinforcement wherein reinforcement becomes available after an average number
of responses. In other words the number of responses prior to reinforcement varies
but on average occurs at a similar frequency (for instance, a behavior may be
reinforced on a variable ratio of 10, abbreviated VR10, meaning that it may be
reinforced on average one in ten times.) This is among the most powerful
schedules of reinforcement for maintaining rapid responding and providing
resistance to extinction.
Verbal Behavior ~ Behavior that is effective only through the mediation of
another person who has been conditioned precisely in order to reinforce the
behavior. Verbal behavior encompasses terms such as language, speech, talking,
comprehension, memory, etc. However, verbal behavior involves an operant
analysis of those behaviors that are reinforced by a listener. Verbal behavior can
involve speaking but also includes sign language, writing, picture communication
systems, Braille, and so forth.
Visual Prompt ~ An antecedent event that is visual and evokes a particular
response. Visual prompts can include a border temporarily placed around a picture
to be selected, an asterisk placed next to a word that is to be read, etc.
Vocal ~ Responses that involve movements of the lungs, larynx, tongue and lips in
order to produce a sound (an auditory response product). Vocal responses can
include talking out loud, babbling, screaming, singing, etc.

101

Sign Language Resources

Kaspar, T.S., & Kaufman, N. (2006). K&K Sign and Say: shaping verbal language for
individuals with Autism and other developmental challenges. Gaylord, MI: Northern
Speech Services.
Michigan State University (2000). Communication Technology Laboratory (Website).
http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm
Your Dictionary.com (1996-2008) Website
http://www.yourdictionary.com/languages/sign.html
Gallaudet University Press, (2002). 1000 Signs of Life. ISBN 1-56368-272-9
Valli, C., Editor. (2006). The Gallaudet Dictionary of American Sign . Gallaudet University
Press. ISBN 1-56368-6
Riekoff, L.L. (1987). The Joy of Signing, Second Edition. Gospel Publishing House. ISBN-10
0882435205

102

Some Useful Texts in the Study of Applied Behavior

Analysis
Alberto, P.A. & Troutman, A.C. (1999). Applied Behavior Analysis for Teachers, fifth
edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall
Austin, J., Carr, J.E. (2000). Handbook of Applied Behavior Analysis. Context Press: Reno,
NV
Catania, C. (2007) Learning, Interim 4th Edition. Cornwall on the Hudson, NY: Sloan
Publishing
Cooper, J.O., Heron, T.E., Heward, W.L. (2007) Applied Behavior Analysis. Prentice Hall.
Michael, J. (2004). Concepts and Principles of Behavior Analysis. Kalamazoo, MI:
Association for Behavior Analysis International.
Skinner, B. F. (1976) About Behaviorism. New York: Random House.
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.

103

References
Attanascio, V., Carbone, V.J., Delany, L., Zecchin, G., & Sweeney-Kerwin, E.J. (2006).
Increasing vocalizations of children with autism using sign language and mand training.
Paper presented at the New York State Association for behavior Analysis, Verona, NY.
Arntzen, E., & Alms, I. K. (2002). Effects of mand-tact versus tact-only training on the
acquisition of tacts. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 419422.
Barbera, M.L.& Rasmussen, T. (2007) The Verbal Behavior Approach: How to Teach
Children with Autism and Related Disorders: London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
Baer, D., Wolf, M., & Risley, T. (1968). Some current dimensions of applied behavioral
analysis. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 1, 91-97.
Bennett, D. L., Gast, D. L., Wolery, M., & Schuster, J. (1986). Time delay and system of
least prompts: A comparison in teaching manual sign production. Education and Training
of the Mentally Retarded, June, 117-129.
Bourret, J., Vollmer, T.R., & Rapp, J.T. (2004) Evaluation of a Vocal Mand Assessment and
Vocal Mand Training Procedures. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, (37 vol. 2), 129-144.
Braam, S.J., & Sundberg, M.L. (1991). The Effects of Specific versus Nonspecific
Reinforcement on Verbal Behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, (9), 19-28.
Carbone, V. (2003). Workshop Series: Teacher Repertoires Necessary to Teach Language
and Basic Learner Skills to Children with Autism; Four Important Lines of Research in
Teaching Children with Autism.
Carbone, V. (2003). Workshop Series: Teacher Repertoires Necessary to Teach Language
and Basic Learner Skills to Children with Autism; Four Important Lines of Research in
Teaching Children with Autism.
Carbone, V. (2004) Clinical Applications of Verbal Behavior Research with Children with
Autism Presentation at 30th Annual convention of the Association of Behavior Analysts:
Boston, MA
Carbone, V. 2005 Advanced Training: Teaching Children with Autism. Manual provided in
conjunction with PA Verbal Behavior Project; Carbone Clinic: Valley Cottage, NY
Carbone, V.J., Lewis, L., Sweeney-Kerwin, E.J., Dixon, J., Louden, R., & Quinn, S. (2006)
A comparison of two approaches for teaching VB functions: Total communication vs. vocalalone. Journal of Speech and Language Pathology and Applied Behavior Analysis, 1, 181-192.
Carbone, V. J., Morganstern, B., Zecchin-Tirri, G., &Kolberg, L. (2007) The role of the
reflexive conditioned motivative operation (CMO-R) during discrete trial instruction of
children with autism. Journal of Early Intensive behavioral Intervention, 4, 658-680
104

Carr, E.G., & Kologinsky, E. (1983). Acquisition of sign language by autistic children using
a time delay procedure. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 16, 297-314.
Carr. E. G., & Durand, V. M. (1985). Reducing behavior problems through functional
communication training. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 18, 111-126.
Carr, J.E., Nicolson, A.C., Higbee, T.S. (2000) Evaluating of a brief multiple stimulus
preference assessment in a naturalistic context. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33,
353-357.
Chamberlain, L. (2008) Rolling prompt time delay to teach spontaneous mands. Case study
presentation, Pennsylvania Verbal Behavior Project Case Study Presentation: Wilkes
Barre, PA.
Charlop-Christy, M., Carpenter, M. L., LeBlanc, L. A., & Kellet, K. (2002). Using the
picture exchange communication system (PECS) with children with autism: Assessment of
PECS acquisition, speech, social-communicative behavior, and problem behavior. Journal
of Applied Behavior Analysis, 3, 213-232.
Charlop, M. H., Schreibman, L., & Thibodeau, M. G. (1985). Increasing spontaneous
verbal responding in autistic children using a time delay procedure. Journal of Applied
Behavioral Analysis, 18, 155-166.
Charlop, M. H. & Trasowech, J. E. (1991). Increasing autistic childrens daily spontaneous
speech. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 24, 747-761.
Cooper, J.O., Heron, T.E., Heward, W.L. (2007) Applied Behavior Analysis. Prentice Hall.
DeLeon, I.G. & Iwata, B.A. (1996). Evaluation of multiple-stimulus presentation format for
assessing reinforcer preferences. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29, 519-533
DeLeon, I.G., Iwata, B.A., Conners, J., & Wallace, M.D. (1999). Examination of ambiguous
stimulus preferences with duration based measures. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
32, 111-114.
Drash, P.W., High, R.L., & Tudor, R.M. (1999). Using mand training to establish an echoic
repertoire in young children with autism. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 16, 29-44.
Fisher, W., Piazza, C.C., Bowman, L.G., Hagiopian, L.P., Owens, J.C. & Slevin, I (1992). A
comparison of two approaches for identifying reinforcers for persons with severe and
profound disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25, 235-238.
Fisher, W. (2001) Functional Analysis of precurrent contingencies between mands and
destructive behavior. Behavior Analyst Today, 2, 176-181
Greer, D. & Ross, D. (2007). Verbal Behavior Analysis. Boston, MA: Pierson Publishing
Halle, J. W., Baer, D. M., & Spradline, J. E. (1981). Teachers generalized use of delay as a
stimulus control procedure to increase language use in handicapped children. Journal of
Applied Behavioral Analysis, 14, 389-409.
105

Hagopian, L.P., Rush, K.S., Lewin, A.B., & Long (2001). Evaluating the predictive validity
of a single stimulus engagement preference assessment. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 34 (4) 475-485.
Hall, G. A., & Sundberg, M. L. (1987). Teaching mands by manipulating conditioned
establishing operations. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 5, 41-53.
Halle, J. W., Baer, D. M., & Spradline, J. E. (1981). Teachers generalized use of delay as a
stimulus control procedure to increase language use in handicapped children. Journal of
Applied Behavioral Analysis, 14, 389-409.
Halle, J. W., Marshall, A. M., & Spradline, J. E. (1979). Time Delay: A technique to
increase language use and facilitate generalization in retarded children. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 12, 431-439.
Hayes, S. C., Barnes-Holmes, D., & Roche, B. (2003). Relational Frame Theory, a post
Skinnerian account of language and cognition. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum
Horne, P. J., & Lowe, C. F. (1996). On the origins of naming and other symbolic behavior.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 65, 185241.
Ingeborg Petursdottir, A., Carr, J.E. & Michael, J. (2005) Emergence of Mands and Tacts
of Novel Objects among Preschool Children. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 59, 21, 5974
Ingenmey, R. & Houten, R. V. (1991). Using time delay to promote spontaneous speech in
an autistic child. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 24, 591-596.
Ivancic, M.T. (2000). Stimulus preference and reinforcer assessment applications. In J.
Austin & J.E.Carr (Eds.), Handbook of Applied Behavior Analysis (pp. 19-38). Reno,
Nevada: Context Press.
Kaspar, T.S., & Kaufman, N. (2006). K&K Sign and Say: shaping verbal language for
individuals with Autism and other developmental challenges. Gaylord, MI: Northern
Speech Services.
Kaufman, N. (1995). Kaufman Speech Praxis Test for Children. Detroit: Wayne State
University Press.
Kaufman, N. (1998). Speech Praxis Treatment Kit for Children. Gaylord, MI: Northern
Speech Services.
Keller, F.S. & Schoenfield, W.N. (1950) Principles of psychology: a systematic text in the
science of behavior. New York: Appleton Century-Crofts
Lavie, T. & Sturmey, P. Training staff to conduct a paired stimulus preference assessment.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 35, 209-211.

106

Lerman, D. & Iwata, B. (1996) A methodology for distinguishing between extinction and
punishment effects associated with response blocking. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
29, 231234.
Lovaas, I. (1981) Teaching developmentally disabled children. The Me Book. Austin,TX:
PRO-ED, Inc.
Lowenkron, B. (1998). Some logical functions of joint control. Journal of the experimental
analysis of behavior, 69, 327-354.
Lowenkron, B. (2004). Meaning: a verbal behavior account. The Analysis of Verbal
behavior, 20, 77-97.
Matson, J. L., Sevin, J. A., Fridley, D., & Love, S. R. (1990). Increasing spontaneous
language in three autistic children. Journal of Applied Behavioral Analysis, 23, 227-233.
Matson, J. L., Sevin, J. A., Box, M. L., Francis, K. L., & Sevin, B. M. (1993). An evaluation
of two methods for increasing self-initiated verbalizations in autistic children. Journal of
Applied Behavioral Analysis, 26, 389-398.
McGreevey, P. (2005) Teaching Sign Language to Hearing Children and Adults with
developmental Disabilities Including Autism. Workshop presented at The 31st Annual
Applied behavior Analysis Convention, Association for Behavior Analysis International:
Chicago, IL
McSweeney, F. (2004) . Dynamic changes in reinforcer effectivenss: satiation and
habituation have different implications for theory and practice. The Behavior Analyst, 27-2,
171-188.
Michael, J. (1985). Two kinds of verbal behavior plus a third. The Analysis of Verbal
Behavior, 3, 14.
Michael, J. (1988). Establishing operations andthe mand. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior,
6, 39.
Michael, J. (1993). Establishing operations. The Behavior Analyst, 16, 191206.
Michael, J. (2000). Implication and refinements of the establishing operation concept.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 33, 401410.
Michael, J. (2004). Concepts and Principles of Behavior Analysis. Kalamazoo, MI:
Association for Behavior Analysis International.
Mirenda, P. (2002). Toward functional augmentative and alternative communication for
students with autism: Manual signs, graphic symbols, and voice output communication
aids, Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 34, 203-216.
Mirenda, P., & Erickson, K. A.. (2000). Augmentative communication and literacy. In
Wetherby, A. M., & Prizant, B. M. (Eds.), Autism spectrum disorders v9 (pp. 333-367).
Baltimore: Paul. H. Brookes.
107

Nirgudkar, A.S. (2005). The relative effects of the acquisition of naming and the multiple
exemplar establishing operation across mands and tacts (Doctoral dissertation, Columbia
University, 2005) Abstract from UNI Proquest digital dissertations (online). Dissertations
Abstracts Item: AAT 3159751.
Novak,G. (1996) Developmental psychology: Dynamical systems and behavior analysis. Reno,
NV: Context Press
Nuzzolo-Gomez, R., & Greer, R.D. (2004). Emergence of Untaught Mands or Tacts of Novel
Adjective-Object Pairs as a Function of Instructional History. The Analysis of Verbal
Behavior, (20), 63-76.
OBrien, L., Oest, C., Sweeney_Kerwin, E., Zecchin, G. & Carbone, V.J. (2007). Toward a
behavioral analysis of eye contact during language training: a case study. Presentation at the
New York State Association for Behavior Analysis, Vernona, NY
Pace, G.M., Ivanic, M.T., Edwards, G.L., Iwata, B.A., & Page, T.J. (1985). Assessment of
stimulus preference and reinforcer value with profoundly retarded individuals. Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, 18, 249-255.
Partington, J. W. (2007). The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills-Revised.
Pleasant Hills, CA: Behavior Analysts, Inc.
Ross, D.E. & Greer,R. D. (2003) Generalized imitation and the mand: inducing first
instances of speech in young children with autism. Research in Developmental Disabilities.
24 (1) 58-74
Secan, K. E., Egel, A. L., & Tilley, C. S. (1989). Acquisition, generalization, and
maintenance of question-answering skills in autistic children. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 22, 181-196.
Shafer, E. (1994). A review of interventions to teach a mand repertoire. The Analysis of
Verbal Behavior, 12, 53-66.
Sidman, M. (1997). Equivalence relations. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior,
68, 258-266.
Sigafoos, J., Doss, S., & Reichle, J. (1989). Developing mand and tact repertoires in persons
with sever developmental disabilities using graphic symbols. Research in Developmental
Disabilities, 10, 183-200.
Sigafoos, J., Reichle, J., Doss, S., Hall, K., & Pettitt (1990). Spontaneous transfer of
stimulus control from tact to mand contingencies. Research in Developmental Disabilities,
11, 165176.
Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B. F. (1976). About Behaviorism. New York: Vintage Paperbacks, Random House
108

Stafford, M.W., Sundberg, M.L. & Braam, S.J. (1988) A Preliminary Investigation of the
Consequences That Define the Mand and the Tact. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, (6,) 6171.
Stern,D. N. (1974). Mother and infant play: the dyadic interactions involving facial, vocal
and gaze behaviors. In M. Lewis&L.A. Rosenblum (Eds.), The effect of the infant on its
caretaker. (pp.187-213) New York: Wiley.
Stern, D. N. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York: Basic Books.
Stokes and Baer (1977) An implicit technology of generalization. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis v10-p349-367
Sundberg, M. L. (1993). The application of establishing operations. The Behavior Analysts,
16, 211-214.
Sundberg, M.L. & Partington J.W. (1998) The Assessment of Basic Language and Learning
Skills. Behavior Analysts, Inc.: Pleasant Hill, CA
Sundberg, M.L. & Partington J.W. (1998) Teaching language to children with autism and
other developmental disabilities. Behavior Analysts, Inc.: Pleasant Hill, CA
Sundberg, & Michael, 2001 The benefits of Skinners analysis of verbal behavior for
children with autism. Behavior Modification, V25-No.5, pp.698-724
Sundberg, M. L., Loeb, M., Hail, L., & Eigenheer, P. (2002). Contriving establishing
operations to teach mands for information. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 18, 14-28.
Sundberg, M. L. (2005). A behavioral analysis of motivation and its relation to mand
training. In L. W. Williams (Ed.). Development disabilities: Etiology, assessment,
intervention, and integration (pp. 1-22). Reno, NV: Context Press.
Sundberg, M.L. (2007) The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment for Program Planning
and Placement.
Sundberg, M.L., San Juan, B., Dawdy, M., Arguelles, M. (1990) The Acquisition of Tacts,
Mands and Intraverbals by Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury. The Analysis of
Verbal Behavior, (8), 83-99.
Sundberg, C.T., & Sundberg, M.L. (1990) Comparing Topography-Based Verbal Behavior
With Stimulus Selection-Based Verbal Behavior. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, (8), 31-41.
Sweeney-Kerwin, E.J., Zecchin, G., Carbone, V.J., Janecky, M., & McCarthy, K., (2006)
Improving the speech production of children with autism. Paper presented at the New York
State Association for Behavior Analysis, Verona, NY.
Sweeney, E.J., Carbone, V.J., OBrien, L., Zecchin, G., & Janecky, M.N. (2007).
Transferring control of the mand to the motivating operation in children with autism. The
Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 23, 89-102
109

Taylor, B.A., & Harris, (1995). Teaching children with autism to seek information:
Acquisition of novel information and generalization of responding. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 28, 3-14.
Tincani, M. (2004). Comparing picture exchange communication system and sign language
training with children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities,
19, 152-163.
Twardosz, S., & Baer, D. W. (1973). Training two severely retarded adolescents to ask
questions. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 6, 65 5-66 1.
Twyman, J. (1996). The functional independence of impure mands and tacts of abstract
stimulus properties. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 13, 119.
Wacker, D.P., Wiggins, B., Fowler, M., & Berg, W.K. (1988) Training students with
profound or multiple handicaps to make requests via microswitches. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, (21), 331-343.
Wilcox, M. J., & Leonard, L. (1978). Experimental acquisition of wh- questions in language
disordered children. Journal of Speech and Hearing Research, 21,
220-239.
Wolery, M., Ault, M. J., & Doyle, P. M. (1992). Teaching students with moderate and severe
disabilities: Use of response prompting procedures. White Plains, NY: Longman.
Wolery, M., Bailey, D. B., & Sugai, G. M. (1988). Effective teaching: Principles of applied
behavior analysis with exceptional students. Boston: Allyn & Bacon
Wraikat, R., Sundberg, C.T., & Michael, J. (1991) Topography-Based and Selection-Based
Verbal Behavior: A Further Comparison. The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, (9), 1-17.
Yamamoto, J., & Mochizuki, A. (1988). Acquisition and functional
analysis of manding with autistic students. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 21,5764.
Yoder, P., & Layton, T. (1989). Speech following sign language training in autistic children
with minimal verbal language. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 18, 217-229.
Young, J.M., Kranz, P.J., McClannahan,L.E., and Poulson, C.L. (1994). Generalized
imitation and response class formation in children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis 27 (4): 685-697
Zimmerman, B. J., & Pike, E. 0. (1972). Effects of modeling and reinforcement on the
acquisition and generalization of question-asking behavior. Child Development,
43, 892-907.

110

111