the effects of praising qualifying autoclitics on the...

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior

55

2008, 24, 55–62

As humans, our own explanations and de-scriptions of nonverbal behavior are, just likeany other behavior, susceptible to reinforce-ment. If the verbal community arranges con-tingencies for correspondence between ver-bal (e.g., self-descriptions) and nonverbal be-havior, than what we say may directly changewhat we do (Catania, 2007). In this sense, one’sverbal behavior may become a way for a per-son to get him- or herself to engage in a par-ticular behavior. The study of self-descriptiveverbal behavior seems to be important not onlybecause self-descriptions may serve as ante-cedent variables for nonverbal behavior, butalso because their understanding may give usinsight regarding a speaker’s awareness of hisor her own behavior (Skinner, 1957).

It is known that external instructions canrapidly establish new performance, sometimesmore rapidly than if behavior has been gradu-ally shaped (Ayllon & Azrin, 1964). Therefore,

there seems to be no reason to consider self-instructions to be functionally different thanexternal instructions (Ono, 1994); they shouldboth exert control over behavior in a similarfashion. Self-instructions, or what is said aboutbehavior, may also be shaped by repeated ex-posure to environmental contingencies. In aclassic study by Catania, Matthews andShimoff (1982), participants were exposed totwo concurrent schedules of reinforcement forbutton presses, and then required to fill outguess sheets describing what they needed todo to obtain points. When experimentersshaped participants’ guesses by assigningpoints to each guess, performance changedaccording to these descriptions. When par-ticipants were told what to guess (no shapinginvolved) however, there was little correspon-dence between verbal descriptions and re-sponse rates. In a related study (Catania,Shimoff, Matthews, 1989) when participants’verbal behavior about the operating contin-gencies (as opposed to description of theirperformance) was shaped, their nonverbal be-havior did not change accordingly. In otherwords, while participants’ accurate descrip-tion of their behavior changed their perfor-mance, accurate description of task contin-gencies did not. As suggested by Catania(2007), this correspondence between shapedself-descriptions and related nonverbal behav-ior may be a product of our history of rein-forcement when learning to speak. We typi-

Address correspondence to Martha Hübner, R.João Avelino Pinho Melão, 120 #72. São Paulo, SP05659-010, Brazil; e-mail: [email protected].

Manuscript preparation was supported byFAPESP/PRONEX Grant 2003/09928-4 and479436/2003-7, and by a fellowship from ConselhoNacional de Desenvolvimento Científico eTecnológico all awarded to the first author. We wouldlike to thank Fatima Dias for assisting with datacollection, as well as Nicole Gravina and DanielleLaFrance for their suggestions on earlier versions ofthe manuscript.

The Effects of Praising Qualifying Autoclitics on theFrequency of Reading

Maria Martha Costa Hübner, Universidade de São Paulo, BrazilJohn Austin, Western Michigan University

Caio F. Miguel, California State University, Sacramento

In the current study, tacts with positive qualifying autoclitics for reading were reinforced in order todetermine if this procedure would increase the time spent reading by participants. Participants included 5children, between 9–10 years old. Participants were individually exposed to 4 free operant sessions duringwhich they were instructed to independently choose play activities. During pre- and post-treatmentconditions, no consequences were provided for choosing reading. In addition, 4 treatment sessions wereconducted on days separate from the free operant session days, during which the experimenter praised eachpositive reading-related statement emitted by the participant. Following treatment sessions, 4 out of 5participants increased the time allocated to reading, suggesting that reading could be increased when praiseis delivered contingent upon positive reading-related verbalizations.Key words: tact, autoclitic, reading, verbal behavior

56 MARIA MARTHA COSTA HÜBNER, et al.

cally learn to describe (i.e., tact) our own per-formances and to behave according to ourdescriptions. After repeated exposure to suchcontingencies, a bi-directional relation (Horne& Lowe, 1996) between verbal and nonverbalbehavior may be established, in that changesto one may produce changes in the other.These results seem to suggest that shapingverbal behavior could be used as a strategy tochange related nonverbal performance.

When analyzing the relation between ver-bal and nonverbal behavior, it may be im-portant to discuss a specific type of verbalbehavior, the autoclitic. According to Skin-ner (1957), “the term autoclitic is intended tosuggest behavior which is based upon or de-pends upon other verbal behavior” (p. 315).

In the case of the descriptive autoclitic, thespeaker emits collateral responses describing thecontrolling relations upon his or her behavior(i.e., tacting one’s own behavior or feelings). Theautoclitic permits the speaker to organize, select,and modify his or her own verbal behavior. Weknow very little about how descriptive autocliticsare learned, how they can be taught, or theireffects upon nonverbal behavior.

Skinner (1957) considered that one possiblefunction of the autoclitic is to exert more precisecontrol over the listener’s behavior. He com-mented that a speaker is not a mere spectator ofwhat she/he says, but is active in organizingand arranging sequences and the content ofstatements. If somebody says, for example, “Iread and I like it,” the tact of reading (I read) ismodified by the autoclitic (I like it) that charac-terizes reading in a positive way (positive quali-fying autoclitic), giving the listener informationregarding the possible reinforcing value of thespeaker’s tacted behavior. In this sense,autoclitics modify the effects that verbal stimulihave upon the listener. For example, in the fol-lowing sentences: “I believe I am going to SãoPaulo,” the speaker emits a tact of his futureaction and informs the listener of the probabilityof occurrence of this action (I believe). In thisway, the autoclitic indicates the strength of thefollowing statement “I am going to São Paulo”and increases the precision of verbal control overthe listener’s behavior. In the sentence “I amglad to be in São Paulo,” the tact about being inSão Paulo is modified by the autoclitic I am gladthat characterizes this event in a positive way,indicating to the listener the possible feelings(or reports of feelings) that may influence the

behavior(s) of the listener in relation to thebehavior(s) of the speaker. Likewise, if the speakerand listener are the same person, a speaker’sautoclitic may increase the precision of verbalcontrol over his/her own nonverbal behavior.The purpose of the current study was to assesswhether praising tacts with positive qualifyingautoclitics for reading would increase time spentreading (i.e., the corresponding nonverbal be-havior) during a free-operant situation. Althoughthe effects of shaping verbal behavior upon non-verbal behavior have not yet been systemati-cally demonstrated in the applied setting, thisseems at least conceptually feasible.

Reading behavior was selected because of itsgenerally low frequency among Brazilian youth.In Brazil, 20% of school children are unable toconclude their studies (INEP, 2006). Possiblecauses of this outcome include controllable fac-tors such as failures in the current technologyof teaching.

METHOD

Participants

Participants were five typically developingchildren (two girls and three boys), between 9and 10 years old. They were recruited from alocal private school in São Paulo, SP, Brazil.According to reports from parents and teach-ers, none of the children enjoyed reading (i.e.,participants actively avoided reading and vo-cally protested during reading); however, allwere able to read and comprehend text.

Participants’ reading comprehension levelswere first evaluated during a formal assess-ment procedure (Santos, 1996). Participantsquietly read two texts (appropriate to their gradelevel) during a 15-minute session and answered5-6 written questions in the presence of an in-structor to demonstrate their understandingof the text. None of the children exhibited diffi-culties in understanding the texts (i.e., all chil-dren scored 80% or above on the assessmentquestions).

Setting and Materials

An experienced psychologist conductedall sessions individually for each participant.During free-operant (i.e., pre- and post-treat-ment) sessions, the experimental room con-

57READING

tained a bookshelf with the following materi-als: books, magazines, glue, scissors, paper,crayons, eraser, chalk, colored pencils, clay,paints, brushes, and games. Items variedacross sessions, but there was always one“familiar” game, one “novel” game, one fa-miliar book, and one novel book present inthe room during free-operant sessions. Thishelped control for the possibility thatchanges in the frequency of reading behav-ior were due to the novelty or familiarity of aspecific book. During treatment sessions, allmaterials except the table, chairs, and cam-era were removed from the room. Treatmentsessions were held in the same room as pre-and post-treatment sessions, but conductedon different days. Data were collected on av-erage two days per week, depending on par-ticipants’ availability.

Data Collection and Dependent Variable

Sessions were recorded using a video cam-era. Data were scored from these videotapesby trained observers at a later date. When scor-ing videotapes, observers recorded total dura-tion of reading behavior. Reading behaviorwas defined as participants’ orienting re-sponses and/or page-turning responses withregard to the available books. This may ormay not have also included statements maderelated to the books.

Experimental Design

The experimental design was a single-case,repeated measures design with pre- and post-treatment sessions.

Procedure

Pre- and Post-Treatment Sessions. Chil-dren were individually exposed to four free-operant sessions (one pretreatment sessionand three post-treatment sessions) over a 2-week time period (range of duration for eachsession: 12–22 min). Prior to each session,participants were instructed to choose whichactivities they would like to engage in (e.g.,doing nothing, playing, painting, drawing,gluing, or reading). No consequences wereprogrammed for participants’ choice behav-ior. At the beginning of the pre- and post-treatment sessions, the experimenter read

aloud the following script (in Portuguese)to the participants:

The bookshelf contains various materi-als: It has crayons, colored pencils, andpapers. If you want, you can draw. It hasbooks so you can look at the pictures andread stories. There are papers, pencils,and brushes. Here are some games. Youcan choose to play any of them. There isalso glue and scissors, so you can cut andglue, if you want to. Now you can chooseany of these items and play. If you getbored you can choose another activity.Go play for 20 minutes with whateveryou like.

During pre- and post-treatment sessions noinstruction was given. Also no verbal interac-tion between participants and experimenter oc-curred, except the reading of the above text.

Treatment Sessions. Participants were ex-posed to four treatment sessions (range of du-ration for each session: 13–15 min) during whichthe experimenter prompted a discussion aboutthe advantages of reading, by saying,

Today we are going to talk about reading.It’s important to me to hear about a bookthat you liked.

During the ensuing conversation, the ex-perimenter praised each positive reading-re-lated statement (i.e., each descriptive, read-ing-related autoclitic statement) emitted by theparticipant. Examples of these statements in-cluded: “That book helped me to create ideasfor my drawings.” Nonexamples included : “Ido not like reading.” Instances of praise in-cluded statements of approval, such as “It’sgood to hear that you like reading,” “It’s coolthat you read the book and liked it,” and re-phrasing or paraphrasing the positive read-ing-related statements emitted by participants(“Oh, I see, what you told me was that thebook was great!”). Non-reading-related state-ments were ignored.

Interobserver Agreement

Interobserver agreement (IOA) was assessedon 100% of sessions. Agreement for readingduration (defined as agreement for the totalnumber of minutes spent reading) averaged100% for all participants. Interobserver agree-ment was calculated by dividing the total num-


Figure 1. Total time spent reading and engaging in other activities during free-operant sessions for Partici-pant 1 (P1). Arrows indicate treatment sessions.


59READING

ber of agreements by the number of agreementsplus disagreements, then multiplying by 100.

Treatment Integrity

Treatment sessions were videotaped and allverbalizations were transcribed. Transcrip-tions were analyzed by the authors to deter-mine the number of reading-related verbaliza-tions made by participants during treatmentsessions and to determine the number of in-stances of praise delivered appropriately bythe experimenter. Appropriate praise was de-fined as praise delivered immediately follow-ing a reading-related verbalization made by theparticipant. All participants received multiplepraise statements (as described above). Thesedata are summarized below as a percentage ofappropriate delivery of praise. The data wereanalyzed for at least 25% of treatment sessionsper participant. On average, across partici-pants, the experimenter accurately deliveredpraise 89% of the time. In addition, on 11 oc-casions (78% of occasions), the experimenterprompted (asked some questions) reading-re-lated verbalization instead of praising it, butthis happened only for Participant 2.

RESULTS

Figure 1 shows that Participant 1 (P1) en-gaged in activities other than reading duringthe first free-operant session, spending theentire time playing with toys and drawing. Ineach of the sessions after treatment, P1 read forthe entire session.

Figure 2 shows that Participant 2 (P2) en-gaged in activities other than reading duringthe first free-operant session, spending only2.5 minutes on reading and the remainder of thetime playing with toys and drawing. In the firstpost-treatment session, P2 engaged in activi-ties other than reading for the entire session. Inthe third post-treatment session, the participantread for the whole session (20 minutes).P2 didnot read in the final session. However, sheasked the researcher to loan her a book at theend of the session.

Figure 3 shows that Participant 3 (P3) read inthe first pretreatment session for 15 (out of 20)minutes. In the first post-treatment session, P3engaged in activities other than reading for theentire session. In the third post-treatment ses-sion, P3 engaged in reading for 22 (out of 22)


61READING

minutes and in the fourth post-treatment session,P3 engaged in reading for 20 (out of 20) minutes.

Figure 4 shows that Participant 4 (P4) en-gaged only in activities other than reading dur-ing the first pretreatment session. However, inthe remaining 3 post-treatment sessions, P4engaged only in reading.

Figure 5 depicts that Participant 5 (P5) choseactivities other than reading for the first pretreat-ment session and for the first post-treatment ses-sion. However, in the second and third post-treat-ment sessions, P5 engaged only in reading.

DISCUSSION

The data suggest that time allocated to read-ing among children can be increased whenpraise is delivered contingent upon positivereading-related verbalizations. Of note, thesetreatment sessions were conducted on dayspreceding free-operant testing sessions. Theseresults suggest that we may be able to changereading behavior by shaping what is said aboutit. Unlike previous studies (e.g., Catania et al.,1982), this effect was demonstrated in an ap-plied clinical setting.

Exactly which minimal verbal units were af-fected by experimenter praise remains a ques-tion for further study. For example, if a child says,“I read a book and I liked it,” this statement in-volves both a tact (I read a book) and anautoclitic (I liked it). In this study, the experi-menter would have delivered praise immediatelyfollowing such a statement, but it is unclear ifthe praise affected the tact, the autoclitic, or somecombination of the two. Despite the fact thatthere may have been different verbal operantsin any given participants’ statements, the ex-perimental protocol specified that praise wouldbe delivered only when positive reading-re-lated autoclitics occurred.

Conceptually speaking, the results of the studycould be explained through the process of con-tingent praise (as reinforcement) increasing theprobability of positive reading-related statements.Those new statements, in turn, could haveserved as function-altering events (Schlinger &Blakely, 1987) by increasing the probability ofreading in the presence of books as well as in-creasing the reinforcing value of reading activi-ties. According to Skinner (1957), autoclitics in-crease the precision of verbal control of thespeaker over a listener. It follows that, if thespeaker and listener are the same person, a

speaker’s autoclitics can increase the precisionof verbal control over nonverbal behavior. Inthis study, when a child said “I like to read,”such a statement (i.e., an autoclitic) could haveaffected reading behavior due to increased pre-cision of verbal stimulus control over this re-lated nonverbal behavior.

The results of the current experiment cor-roborate the previous literature on correspon-dence between verbal and nonverbal behavior(Lloyd, 2002; Ribeiro, 1989) in which childrentend to show a higher degree of correspon-dence than adults.

Two important limitations of the study areworth noting. First, the study employed what isessentially an AB design, with just a few mea-sures of treatment effects and only one baselinemeasure, all conducted over a short period oftime. Future research should use a more rigorousresearch design, over a longer period of time toassess the durability of treatment effects. Sec-ond, given participants’ previous histories withadults/teachers, it is possible that the presenceof the experimenter served as an antecedent vari-able controlling the emission of reading behav-ior. The presence of adults can either be corre-lated with availability of reinforcement, func-tioning as a discriminative stimulus, or corre-lated with punishment for nonacademic behav-iors, functioning as a reflexive motivating op-eration. Future studies should attempt to con-trol for this interference by collecting baselinedata over a more extensive period of time.

Reading behavior is exceedingly rare amongchildren in Brazil (and indeed, of children aroundthe world, INEP, 2006). Irrespective of its concep-tual underpinnings, this study suggests that acost-effective and easy-to-implement proceduremay be useful in promoting reading among chil-dren. Future research should further explore thecurrent methodology as well as other verbal-be-havior based strategies to increase choice forreading as well as time spent reading.

REFERENCES

Ayllon, T., & Azrin, N. H. (1964). Reinforce-ment and instructions with mental patients.Journal of the Experimental Analysis ofBehavior, 7, 327–331.

Catania, A. C. (2007). Learning. (4th interim ed.)Cornwall-on-Hudson, NY: Sloan.

Catania, A. C., Matthews, B. A., & Shimoff, E.(1982). Instructed versus shaped human


verbal behavior: Interactions with non-ver-bal responding. Journal of the Experimen-tal Analysis of Behavior, 38, 233–248.

Catania, A. C., Shimoff, E., & Matthews, B. A.(1989). An experimental analysis of rule gov-erned behavior. In S.C. Hayes (Ed.), Rule gov-erned behavior: Cognition, contingencies,and instructional control. New York: Plenum.

Horne, P.J., & Lowe, C.F. (1996). On the originsof naming and other symbolic behavior.Journal of the Experimental Analysis ofBehavior, 65, 185–241.

INEP (2006). Instituto Nacional de Estudos ePesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira[National Institute for Studies and Educa-tional Researches]. Resultados do censoescolar, 2005. Retrieved August 14, 2006,from http://www.inep.gov.br/

Lloyd, K. E. (2002). A Review of Correspon-dence Training: Suggestions for a Revival.The Behavior Analyst, 25, 57-73.

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Hayes, S. C., Hayes, L. J., Sato, M., & Ono,K. (Eds.). Behavior analysis of languageand cognition, (pp. 181–196). Reno, NV: Context Press.

Ribeiro, A. F. (1989). Children’s self-reportbehavior: A study of correspondence be-tween verbal and non-verbal and self-de-scription. Journal of the ExperimentalAnalysis of Behavior, 51, 361–367.

Santos, J. A. (1996). Avaliação do interesse porleitura em alunos de 2ª e 4ª series [Readinginterest assessment for 2nd and 4th grade stu-dents]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,Universidade Federal de São Carlos, SãoPaulo, Brazil.

Schlinger, H., & Blakely, E. (1987). Function-altering effects of contingency-specify-ing stimuli. The Behavior Analyst,10, 41–45.

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