UNLABELLED We sought to replicate and extend Carroll and Hesse's (1987) study of the acquisition of tacts by including participants with and without developmental disabilities. As in Carroll and Hesse, the present results showed that mand-tact training, rather than tact-only training, led to more rapid acquisition of tacts. Tacting on follow-up tests did not differ. In addition, our results sho...

In 1957, Skinner, in his "Verbal Behavior", proposed an explanation on how a language is learned. In 1959, Chomsky strongly argued the non-learnability of language, establishing in the field of developmental psycholinguistics the substitution of the term "learning" for that of "acquisition". Currently, the constructivist models describe language acquisition as a process of ontogenetic, gradual,...

This paper describes recent studies that have evaluated the functional independence of verbal operants. Procedures that facilitate the emergence of untrained verbal operants and important areas of future research to increase efficiency of language programs for children diagnosed with developmental disabilities are discussed.

As we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the publication of B. F. Skinner's Verbal Behavior, it may be important to reconsider the role of the listener in the verbal episode. Although by Skinner's own admission, Verbal Behavior was primarily about the behavior of the speaker, his definition of verbal behavior as "behavior reinforced through the mediation of other persons" (1957, p. 2) focused on...