The Role of Conditioning of Reinforcers and the Emergence of Naming

When naming is acquired, children are able to learn new object-name relations from observing others’ tacts. Naming consists of basic verbal operants and listener responses. These operants are typically maintained by conditioned social reinforcers, such as smile, nods, acknowledgements, change of visual focus, and so on. Unfortunately, these consequences rarely function as reinforcers for behavior in children with autism. The purpose of the present study was to enhance naming skills through operant conditioning of social consequences. Then, the naming skills were exposed to those conditioned reinforcers. The results showed increased naming skills: Three of four preschool participants demonstrated full naming after social stimuli were conditioned as reinforcers, whereas one participant showed only the listener part of naming. This study adds to the literature that shows the importance of establishing relevant social conditioned reinforcers to improve complex social behavior in children with autism, such as naming.