We often discuss early learners and foundation skills on the podcast, but today we are discussing an important skill for intermediate learners. Dr. Sarah Lechago is an associate professor in the Behavior Analysis Master’s program at the University of Houston, Clear Lake. And she also directs the Verbal Behavior Clinic there and co-directs the Connecting the Dots program. Today, Dr. Lechago is sharing with us her research and work on manding for information and autoclitics.
Manding is the skill of asking questions, it’s a part of our daily life as we mand for items, mand for attention, and many other requests and needs. Manding for information involves asking questions that will receive meaningful information. Before teaching your child or client to mand for information, they should be manding for items that are in front of them. Dr. Lechago and I discuss how she teaches where and how manding for missing items in her trials. There are many steps involved in manding for information in this setting, with an engaging activity the learner will notice a needed item is missing, mand (ask) where it is, and follow the directions (the information they received by asking) to find and retrieve the missing item. This is a hallmark skill that contributes to more learning and conversation skills in a child’s life. In the episode, Dr. Lechago and I go into detail about the skills needed to master manding for information and how to get there.
I am not a proponent of teaching carrier phrases too early, but an autoclitic is a sentence frame that a learner should use when manding, especially when manding for information. Words like Where, Who, What, Which, How, should not be taught in isolation but rather in the presence of an item in an autoclitic frame. Dr. Lechago uses the example, “Where is the…” this is an autoclitic frame that directs the learner to ask for specific information about a specific item. So instead of saying just, “spoon” when looking for the spoon, the child would say, “where is the spoon?”. This frame is the child manding for the location of an item, and the answer to this mand would be the place and directions to find the spoon. Teaching these phrases can help learners know how to mand for the information they are looking for, like, where is an item or who has an item.
Dr. Sarah Lechago is an Associate Professor in the Behavior Analysis master’s program at the University of Houston-Clear Lake (UHCL). She directs the UHCL Verbal Behavior Clinic (VBC) and co-directs the UHCL Connecting the Dots program. Her research interests include verbal behavior, student and caregiver training, motivating operations, and diversity, inclusion, and equity. She has published in numerous journals including JEAB, JABA, and TAVB. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the TAVB journal. She also serves as the founder and Chair of the Texas Association for Behavior Analysis’ (TxABA) Equity, Diversity, and Inclusivity for Everyone (EDIE) Committee.
