Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................................1
Prerequisites..........................................................................................................................................1
Licence and disclaimer..........................................................................................................................1
Milestones of intraverbal development......................................................................................................2
Deriving a therapy from stages..................................................................................................................2
Stages of intraverbal development.............................................................................................................3
Stage 1: fill-in obvious information......................................................................................................3
Stage 2: fill-in known information........................................................................................................4
Stage 3: fill-in FFC and association information..................................................................................4
Stage 4: respond What and Where questions with items and FFC.......................................................4
Stage 5: talk about previously observed items, activities and people...................................................5
Stage 6: make related statements...........................................................................................................5
Stage 7: respond What and Where questions upon community information........................................5
Stage 8: give multiple responses...........................................................................................................5
Stage 9: answer Who/Whose questions.................................................................................................6
Stage 10: answer When questions.........................................................................................................6
Stage 11: answer various Wh- questions...............................................................................................6
Stage 12: give explanations...................................................................................................................6
Stage 13: match the whole and the parts of an activity.........................................................................6
Stage 14: answer questions indirectly referring something...................................................................7
Stage 15: answer to questions containing multiple stimuli...................................................................7
Stage 16: describe items and activities..................................................................................................7
Stage 17: answers questions about past or upcoming events................................................................7
Stage 18: maintains a conversation on a topic......................................................................................8
Stage 19: answer novel questions..........................................................................................................8
Stage 20: answer questions concerning current events.........................................................................8
Stage 21: answer questions in group discussions..................................................................................8
Stage 22: share stories and experiences................................................................................................9
Stage 23: spontaneous participation into a conversation.......................................................................9
Intraverbals
Introduction
According to the Verbal Behavior theory of language1, intraverbals are those verbal operands which
are triggered by other verbal stimuli.
Their importance is huge: a conversation is nothing but a long chain of intraverbals while the control of
the verbal exchange passes from one participant to the other and back. Therefore, without intraverbals
we have no conversations and without conversations our ability to speak, no matter how functional,
cannot fulfill its social role.
This document presents possible stages of teaching intraverbals. While not necessarily complete or
exact, we believe this list of stages is useful in designing a Verbal Behavior therapy to induce richer
intraverbal usage. The stages have been extracted mainly from the ABLLS-R test.
Prerequisites
In order to understand this document, it is necessary to understand the basics of the Verbal Behavior
theory of language.
The intend of this document is to get integrated into a verbal behavior therapy. A way to design such a
therapy is to download and read our VBA package2. It is strongly recommended not to use this
document in isolation. Access to the ABLLS-R test is highly recommended.
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
Stage 4: respond What and Where questions with items and FFC
Goal: to make sure the student is able to answer questions with items or FFC.
Prerequisites: basic listening comprehension, basic Wh- questions/receptive.
Components: the student must be able to respond to various What and Where questions regarding
immediate objects, images of objects, objects in a certain room as well as the functions,
the features and the classes of objects.
ABLLS-R: 10-13.
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
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Intraverbals
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