Teaching signaled reading, tact and, intraverbal repertoires through conditional discriminations to hearing and hearing impaired children

• Grant number: 08/04407-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral
• Start date: October 01, 2008
• End date: September 30, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Experimental Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Antonio Celso de Noronha Goyos
• Grantee: Nassim Chamel Elias
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The overall objective of these studies is to expand knowledge about signaled verbal operant acquisition and emergence. From behavioral-analytic point of view, sign language is very different of oral language; nevertheless, it also presents controlling operations. Similarities and differences in the acquisition of spoken and signaled verbal operant would lead to an extension of theoretical and practical understanding of this area, indicating the relevance of the basic processes, independently of response forms. On the other hand, literature largely illustrates the use of stimulus equivalence paradigm to investigate cognitive and academic skill acquisition process. However, the use of this paradigm to investigate verbal operant acquisition has not been much explored and it is very promising. Some studies have investigated signaled tact and reading acquisition, through teaching derived from stimulus equivalence paradigm, by deaf individuals and they indicate that reading acquisition is more difficulty than tact acquisition. Tact allows verbal behavior about an object or event present in the environment. To increase verbal repertoire complexity, intraverbal operant might be present, because it is considered a pre-requisite for more advanced communication skills, such as conversation. Signaled intraverbal teaching faces some limitations due to sign language phrasal features, which, generally, do not correspond to the written/spoken dominant language in the environment. Considering the functional importance of these verbal operants and the lack of studies that bring the above mentioned area together, the two studies hereby proposed intend to investigate the emergence of signaled verbal operants through conditional discrimination tasks, derived from stimulus equivalence paradigm, to deaf and hearing individuals. (AU)