The present study replicated and extended the Pelaez et al. (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 44:33-40, 2011) study, which examined the reinforcing effects of mothers' contingent imitation of their infants' vocalizations. Three infants aged 7-12 months who could vocalize sounds but not words participated with two caregivers for each infant (i.e., triads). During the intervention phase, the caregivers were asked to immediately imitate all vocalizations emitted by the child for a 3-min period. During the yoked control phase, the caregivers listened to an audio recording from the preceding condition and provided vocalizations non-contingently on the infants' responses. The procedures yielded different results across participants; one infant emitted a higher frequency of vocalizations during the contingent imitation phases over the control phases, and the other two infants showed higher rates of responding during the control phases. However, all infants emitted more imitative return vocalizations during contingent reinforcement conditions compared with the yoked control condition.Keywords Infant vocalizations . Language acquisition . Maternal imitation . Echoics . Vocal conditioning . Differential reinforcement of other behavior A significant amount of research has been conducted on the relation between the development of preverbal skills in infants and later language development and academic achievement (see Pelaez et al. 2011). For example, Hart and Risley (1995) examined the differences in vocabulary development over time among children of varying socioeconomic backgrounds. At age 3, larger vocal repertoires in children were correlated with higher socioeconomic status of the family. These findings were thought to be a function of differences in the frequency and richness of words addressed to the children, as well as parents providing additional prompting for the children to participate in reciprocal interactions. Positive correlations were found between children's early language repertoire and academic success at 9 and 10 years of age. Given the results of Hart and Risley's (1995) study and the implications for influencing later academic skills and success, consideration of behavioral mechanisms responsible for larger verbal repertoires of infants is critical. The increase in reciprocal interactions that occurred with parents of higher socioeconomic status suggests the role of imitation as one possible mechanism for the increase in infant vocal verbal behavior.A behavioral analysis of imitation was proposed in Skinner's (1957) analysis of verbal behavior. The echoic was defined as behavior under the functional control of a Analysis Verbal Behav
Sexual fantasy is common among humans and often serves to facilitate sexual arousal. Although some fantasies may be directly related to a person's past experiences, others may be unrelated to direct history, and these are thus more difficult to explain. Relational frame theory is a comprehensive account of human language and cognition that may assist in understanding the processes involved in the emergence of sexual fantasy. This article presents a primer on relational frame theory, along with examples of how relations between stimuli may influence a person's private experience of sexual fantasy.
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