Verbal Behavior Approaches in Teaching Language Skills to Children With ASD in Turkey

By Buket Kisac-Demiroglu, 2022 awardee of an International Development Grant

Buket Kisac-Demiroglu, Ph.D., BCBA-D, is an assistant professor of special education and a department chair at Zonguldak Bulent Ecevit University (ZBEU). She completed her master’s and doctoral degree in special education at the University of Pittsburgh. She conducted research projects on teaching verbal behavior and provided presentations about verbal behavior-related topics at conferences. She is the editor of an ABA textbook and an author of the verbal behavior chapter. She has taught many ABA-related undergraduate courses.

Language interventions that have evolved from the science of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) have been shown to be effective in improving communication skills for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). It is crucial to implement these interventions early on for lasting improvements in functional abilities of these children. Verbal behavior approach is one model of intervention developed to incorporate Skinner’s (1957) functional analysis of verbal behavior as primary to the curriculum and has been used to teach a range of language skills to children with ASD. However, the teacher’s use of verbal behavior approach for improving language abilities of children with ASD in a Turkish Special Education School are few. The dissemination of verbal behavior approach in educational settings is crucial and carefully designed, implementation-focused studies regarding the verbal behavior approach is necessary. Thus, the goal of this project is to promote the use of verbal behavior approach in teaching language skills to children with ASD in public school in Turkey. This international grant will be used to support implementation of verbal behavior appraoch procedures by special education teachers in Turkey. The Project will involve the following steps: (1) creating self-directed online training modules, (2) using behavior skills training and vivo training for teacher training for implementing verbal behavior in a classroom (3) collecting data on the accuracy of implementation (4) collecting data on student performance (5) collecting data on social validity and (6) presenting and sharing the results of the project through peer-reviewed journals and/or conferences.