The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (The VB-MAPP)

1. The Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program (The VB-MAPP) Mark L. Sundberg, William A. Galbraith, & Mike Miklos

2. A Brief History of a Verbal Behavior Assessment • B. F. Skinner and Fred Keller • Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior (1957) • Happy 50th Anniversary!

3. 1978 1993 1983

4. Jack Michael Teacher of Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior (starting in 1955)

5. A Brief History of a Verbal Behavior Assessment • Joseph Spradlin, first systematic application of verbal behavior to language assessment and intervention for the developmentally disabled • “The Parsons Language Sample” (Spradlin, 1963) used Skinner’s elementary verbal operants (i.e., echoic, mand, tact, intraverbal) as a framework for language assessment

7. A Brief History of a Verbal Behavior Assessment • During the 1960s and 1970s there were 100s of people who contributed to the development of Applied Behavior Analysis and language assessment and intervention for the developmentally disabled (e.g., Baer, Bailey, Bijou, Englemann, Guess, Hart, Kent, Lovaas, Lutzker, Risley, Sailor, Sherman, Wolf)

8. Sidney W. Bijou

9. Don Baer, Mont Wolf, & Todd Risley

10. O. Ivar Lovaas

11. A Brief History of a Verbal Behavior Assessment • There were also a number of behavior analysts focusing on Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior (e.g., Catania, Cook, Day, Ferster, Holland, Knapp, MacCorquodale, Michael, Moore, Pear, Salzinger, Sloane, Spradlin, Vargas, Wood)

12. A Brief History of a Verbal Behavior Assessment • In the mid to late 1970s approximately 50 VB research projects were conducted at the Kalamazoo Valley Multihandicap Center (KVMC). Most of these projects were presented at the annual MABA, ABA, & APA conventions • This thematic line of VB research was heavily influenced by the developments in ABA and VB, and the guidance of Jack Michael • Jerry Shook was the Director of KVMC, and Mark Sundberg was the KVMC Research Coordinator • Jack Michael was our research advisor • Most of the projects were Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations by students from the psychology department of Western Michigan University, who had taken Jack Michael’s verbal behavior class and worked at KVMC

15. The Purpose of a Language Assessment • Determine the operant level of a child’s verbal (and related) skills • Compare to the language development of typical children • Identify language acquisition and learning “barriers” • If and where to begin intervention (placement) • Establish IEP goals • Design an individualized curriculum/intervention program • Teaching strategies (e.g., AC, DTT-NET, inclusion, in-home) • Is the intervention program working? Why or why not? • A tool to demonstrate learning, track progress, make changes, provide outcome measures

16. Traditional Language Assessment • Cognitive and/or biological variables seen as the primary sources of control for verbal responses • Based on the expressive-receptive distinction, mediated by cognitive processors • Norm referenced and standardized assessments • Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test • Expressive One-word Vocabulary Test • Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence • Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals

17. Behavioral Language Assessment • The verbal operant is the functional unit (form and function) • Environmental variables are viewed as the relevant sources of control for verbal responses, rather than cognitive or biological variables • Each verbal operant involves separate sources of control (independent variables), thus each must be assessed • Most verbal responses are under multiple sources of control • More complex verbal behavior is comprised of various combinations of the verbal operants • Speaker and listener as separate repertoires • Criterion-referenced assessment

18. Problems with the ABLLS(Partington & Sundberg, 1998) • A significant improvement over Sundberg, et al, 1979; Sundberg, 1983, 1987, 1990 • Too many skills to assess (476) • Just a listing of skills with examples, and a scoring criteria • The ABLLS was not designed to serve as a stand alone product, but it has become that for a significant number of users • Originally, the ABLLS was designed to accompany the Teaching Language to Children with Autism book • No content on what constitutes mands, tacts, intraverbals, etc. • No content/text on how to conduct a verbal behavior analysis • Not enough information in the individual cells to explain the skill being assessed and the relevant sources of control (e.g., noun-verb tacting, mands for information, multiply controlled intraverbal behavior)

19. Problems with the ABLLS(Partington & Sundberg, 1998) • The information that is in the cells is frequently redundant across cells (e.g., The task name, objective, and question is often the same) • Much of it is out of developmental sequence (as I see it now) • Core sequence of verbal skills is 24 years old (Sundberg, 1983) • Skills not developmentally balanced out on the grids • No placement system (e.g., when to start IV) • No verbal behavior analysis of language and learning barriers (a major component of assessment) • Steps in the cells were too small for IEP goals

20. Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program: The VB-MAPP • Based on Skinner’s (1957) analysis of verbal behavior • Based on typical language development milestones • By identifying milestones, as opposed to a task analysis of individual skills, the focus can be sharper, and the direction clearer • Field test data from approximately 75 typically developing children • Field test data from over 150 children with autism • The body of empirical research that provides the foundation of Behavior Analysis • Empirical research on Skinner’s analysis of verbal behavior

21. Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessment and Placement Program:The VB-MAPP • There are four components of the VB-MAPP • The VB-MAPP: Skills Assessment contains 165 verbal behavior milestones across 3 developmental levels (0-18 mos., 18-30 mos., 30-48 mos.), and 16 different verbal operants and related skills • The VB-MAPP: Skills Task Analysis provides a further breakdown of the 16 different skill areas in the form of a checklist for skills tracking • The VB MAPP: Barriers Assessment examines 22 common learning and language barriers faced by children with autism • The VB-MAPP: IEP Goals provides over 200 IEP objectives directly linked to the skills and barriers assessments, and verbal behavior intervention program (Sundberg, in preparation)

22. Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessmentand Placement Program: The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment • The assessment is designed to identify the child’s existing language and related skills • An assessment should probe a representative sample of a repertoire • Typical verbal milestones can provide the frame for the sample • Typical verbal milestones can help to avoid focusing on only minor steps • Typical verbal milestones can help to avoid targeting skills for intervention that are developmentally inappropriate • IEP goals can match the milestones, not individual skills

23. Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessmentand Placement Program: The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment • The 16 skills assessed on the VB-MAPP include: • The elementary verbal operants (e.g., echoic, imitation, mand, tact, intraverbal) • The listener skills • Vocal output • Play and social skills • Visual perceptual skills, and matching-to-sample • Grammatical and syntactical skills • Group and classroom skills • Beginning academic skills

24. Verbal Behavior Milestones Assessmentand Placement Program: The VB-MAPP Skills Assessment • The milestones are broken into three developmental levels • Level 1: 0-18 months • Level 2: 18-30 months • Level 3: 30-48 months • The scores for each skill are approximately balanced across each level • There are 5 items and 5 possible points for each skill area

27. VB-MAPP Level 1: Tact

28. VB-MAPPS for Typically Developing Children Lisa Hale Mark L. Sundberg Rikki Roden Carl T. Sundberg Cindy A. Sundberg

34. VB-MAPPs for Children with Autism Mark L. Sundberg Carl T. Sundberg Shannon Niedig Shannon Montano Kaisa Weathers