Derived Relational Responding Applications for Learners with Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities: A Progressive Guide to Change

Copublished with Context Press

Derived Relational Responding offers a series of revolutionary intervention programs for applied work in human language and cognition targeted at students with autism and other developmental disabilities. It presents a program drawn from derived stimulus relations that you can use to help students of all ages acquire foundational and advanced verbal, social, and cognitive skills.

The first part of Derived Relational Responding provides step-by-step instructions for helping students learn relationally, acquire rudimentary verbal operants, and develop other basic language skills. In the second section of this book, you'll find ways to enhance students' receptive and expressive repertoires by developing their ability to read, spell, construct sentences, and use grammar. Finally, you'll find out how to teach students to apply the skills they've learned to higher order cognitive and social functions, including perspective-taking, empathy, mathematical reasoning, intelligence, and creativity. This applied behavior analytic training approach will help students make many substantial and lasting gains in language and cognition not possible with traditional interventions.

Ruth Anne Rehfeldt, PhD, BCBA, is assistant professor in the Rehabilitation Institute of Southern Illinois University Carbondale. She holds doctoral and master's degrees in psychology from the University of Nevada, and a bachelor's degree in psychology from the University of Puget Sound. She is also a board-certified behavior analyst.

Yvonne Barnes-Holmes, PhD, is lecturer in psychology in the Department of Psychology at the National University of Ireland, in Maynooth, Ireland.

Steven C. Hayes, PhD, is Foundation Professor in the department of psychology at the University of Nevada, Reno. An author of forty-four books and over 600 scientific articles, his career has focused on an analysis of the nature of human language and cognition, and the application of this to the understanding and alleviation of human suffering and the promotion of human prosperity. Among other associations, Hayes has been president of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT), and the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science. He has received several awards, including the Impact of Science on Application Award from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis, and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the ABCT.