Marksundberg.com Website Review

The primary goal of my website is to provide information on B.F. Skinner’s (1957) an*lysis of language. Recently, Skinner’s work has experienced wide-spread use for language as*essment and intervention for children with autism and other developmental disabilities. The following brief overview of Skinner’s an*lysis and its application to the treatment of children with autism is provided A Brief Overview of a Behavioral Approach to Language As*essment and Intervention for Children with Autism   Mark L. Sundberg, Ph.D., BCBA The primary focus of an intervention program for children with autism should be on the development of effective language skills. However, language is complex, and the professional literature contains a vast array of theories, opinions, and views as to how to an*lyze, as*ess, and teach language. Currently, cognitive theories underlie most of the language as*essment and intervention programs used for children with autism. Behavior an*lysis provides an alternative an*lysis of language (Skinner, 1957) that is an empirically sound and comprehensible conception of human language. Skinner’s an*lysis of verbal behavior is based on the same principles of behavior and basic research that underlie the teaching procedures of discrete trial training (DTT) and applied behavior an*lysis (ABA). These teaching procedures (e.g., prompting, fading, shaping, chaining), along with Skinner’s an*lysis of verbal behavior can provide a behavioral foundation for the an*lysis, as*essment, and day-to-day language intervention program for The behavioral an*lysis of language (Skinner, 1957) identifies language as learned behavior caused by the same environmental variables that control nonverbal behavior (i.e., stimulus control, motivating operations, reinforcement, etc.). Skinner (1957) argued that emitting words and speaking constitutes learned behavior that is conditioned by contact with a verbal environment. Skinner (1957) wrote, “What happens when a man speaks or responds to speech is clearly a question about human behavior and hence a question to be