The US Dept. of Education, in conjunction with the US Dept. of Health and Human Services, recently unveiled a $50 million effort to expand research on early childhood cognitive development. A key issue identified requiring more information and research was the education and professional development of educators. Along these lines, Doug Greer has prepared a book discussing how best to teach, how to design functional curricula, and how to support teachers in using state-of-the-art science instruction materials.
The book provides important information both to trainers of future teachers, current teachers, and to supervisors and policy makers in education. To trainers there is information on how to motivate, mentor, and instruct in-service teachers to use the best scientifically based teaching strategies and tactics. To in-service teachers, there is information on how to provide individualized instruction in classrooms with multiple learning and behavior problems, school interventions to help prevent vandalism and truancy, and how curricula and instruction can be designed to teach functional repetoirs rather than inert ideas. To policy makers and supervisors, the book discusses how to determine the effectiveness of curricular innitiatives toward meeting mandated standards in national assessments.
Doug Greer was recently awarded the Fred S. Keller Award for Distinguished Contributions to Education by APA for the research and application of the material covered in this book. School programs incorporating the material used in this book have produced 4-7 times more learning outcomes for students than control and baseline educational programs (see www.cabas.com)
The book provides research-based and field-tested procedures for:
* Teaching students of all ability levels ranging from preschool to secondary school
* How to teach special education students in the context of a regular classroom
* Best practices for all teachers to teach more effectively
* Means of monitoring and motivating teachers' practices
* A comprehensive and system-wide science of teaching post modern-postmodern
* Tested procedures that result in four to seven times more learning for all
students
* Tested procedures for supervisors to use with teachers that result in
significant student learning
* Tested procedures for providing the highest accountability
* A systems approach for schooling problems that provide solutions rather
than blame
* Parent approved and parent requested educational practices
* Means for psychologists to work with teachers and students to solve
behavior and learning problems
* A comprehensive systems science of schooling
* An advanced and sophisticated science of pedagogy and curriculum design
* Students who are not being served with traditional education can meet or
exceed the performance of their more fortunate peers,
* Supervisors can mentor teachers and therapists to provide state of the
science instruction
* Parent education can create a professional setting for parents, educators,
and therapists to work together in the best interests of the student,
* Teachers and supervisors who measure as they teach produce significantly
better outcomes for students,
* Systemic solutions to instructional and behavioral problems involving
teachers, parents, supervisors provide means to pursue problems to their
solution,
* A science of teaching, as opposed to an art of teaching, can provide an
educational system that treats the students and the parents as the clients."

Help children develop language and verbal functions with the help
of Douglas Greer and Denise Ross! "This is definitely a book I will be purchasing for my professional use. I supervise student teachers in home-based programs as well as school programs and this book will be a perfect fit for the program implementation we currently present. Greer and Ross have produced an excellent accumulation of research compilation, assessment and program descriptions for implementation by professionals training and working with autistic children and adults." -Dr. Irfa Karmali, Shelby Residential and Vocational Services "Overall, a very technically accurate book and one well suited to accompany a practicum component in verbal behavior. Very comprehensive and [does] a good job of covering most questions, concerns and issues [for] training others to implement verbal behavior strategies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it." -Janet Goodman, University of West Georgia Responding to the overwhelming demand for effective language development tools for children with no language and severe language delays related to autism and other disabilities, Douglas Greer and Denise Ross present newly identified methods to assist teachers and parents in their efforts to provide verbal capabilities to children. In their book "Verbal Behavior Analysis," Doug and Denise describe how to help children produce novel and spontaneous verbal functions, acquire language incidentally, and become socially verbal. They carefully integrate the latest research, including many new findings, and present readers with a clear outline of the current state of the science of verbal behavior and its application to children with real needs.Behavior analysts, parents, and teachers will find the procedures applicable to all forms of language (signs, pictures, and voice-generating devices) while maintaining a strong emphasis on the vocal production of a child's speech.

• Describes how to teach children to be literate listeners, reducing the number of instructional times required to teach basic skills from four to ten times. (Chapter 3).
• Presents the necessary procedures to teach children to become observational learners. (Chapter 5 and 7).
• Offers practitioners methods for teaching children to acquire novel language and language usage incidentally, allowing children to expand their language without direct instruction. (Chapters 3, 5, and 6).
• Demonstrates helping children to move from emergent speakers to readers, and learn to enjoy books in free time, and to read. (Chapter 6).
• Introduces a verbal developmental scheme to guide instruction and aid practitioners in determining which children need particular interventions and when they need them, along with alternative tactics and strategies for solving learning problems. (Chapters 2 and 7).

Motivation is key to all instructional effectiveness and is perhaps more difficult to create with children who have developmental disabilities. The study discussed in this monograph tested the effects of an establishing operation procedure on subsequent academic responding of 6 children with autism. The procedure, sampling, consisted of delivering verbal and social play prior to instructional sessions compared to sessions not preceded by sampling. These were compared using a multiple elemental experimental design. The findings showed a functional relationship between the pre-instructional sampling session and correct responding that occurred during subsequent academic instruction. The results of the study are meaningful as it presents a method for increasing motivation for accuracy in the learning of new skills for children with autism.