Some of our friends have a child with autism who is in a “verbal behavior” treatment program. How does that differ from other behavior therapy programs?
Verbal Behavior was the title of a book by B.F. Skinner’s published in 1957. It was Skinner’s analysis of speech, conversation and writing in terms of the speaker’s motivational state, stimulus circumstances, past history, and genetic constitutions. Within the filed of autism services, James Partington and Mark Sundberg have done extensive research and applied work, and written about Skinner’s approach to speech and language as it applies to teaching children with autism (see http://www.behavioranalysts.com/). Vincent Carbonne (see http://www.drcarbone.net/) has developed an incidental teaching approach to behavior therapy with children with autism which he calls “Verbal Behavior”, which is based on behavior analytic principles and addresses some concepts in Skinner’s book. Carbone has published several articles on his approach. Both Verbal Behavior approaches appear to be effective for many children with ASDs.
