ASD Spectrum: A range of conditions classified as neuro-developmental disorders that are characterized by challenges with social skills, speech and nonverbal communication, and repetitive behaviors.
Errorless Teaching Program: A teaching procedure in which the child is prompted to make the correct response immediately, ensuring a correct response each time.
Verbal Behavior (VB): A program of instruction for involved learners for teaching the student the meaning of words and their functions that is based on and growing from continuing research using Skinner’s work.
Verbal Behavior Operants
- Intraverbals: Answering questions or filling in blanks (e.g. "Mary had a little..." and the student completes the sentence with "lamb.). In this study, I read a question or phrase and the student identifying the zones or the phrase to follow the question asked (ie: I would say, “What tool do you need in the red zone?”, and the student would choose a tool that they would use to calm down their body).
- Listener Responding and Discrimination: Listener responding and discrimination is where the child would have to listen to a phrase or a question and respond with an appropriate answer (ie: I would say, “Show me the person who is happy”, and the child would have to find the boy who was happy from different photos in front of him/her).
- Motor Imitation: Motor Imitation is when a teacher has a specific phrase, feeling, or word that they would like the child to replicate. I would use feeling words and have the student demonstrate that feeling through facial expressions and body language.
- Matching: Matching involves using two sets of the cards, pictures, feeling words, or phrases and the student would have to match the picture to the same picture. Emotion pictures were matched to the correct zone (ie: the word “happy” would be matched in the “green zone”).
- Sorting: To sort students would be given a picture, word, or phrase and have to identify what category it belongs in. Multiple emotion pictures and picture of tools to calm their body down were put into the correct zone (ie: a picture of a boy who was “sad” was placed into the “blue zone”).
- Tacts: Tacting is to identify a picture, word, or phrase by looking at the picture. Tacting was used for students to identify each zone (blue, green, red, and yellow) and feelings (ie: mad, sad, happy, aggressive) using picture prompts.
Zones of Regulation (Zones): Self-regulating curriculum that is used to teach students to regulate their emotions and problem solving to use strategies or tools to either stay in a zone or move into another zone.