Comportamento verbal: uma análise da abordagem skinneriana e das extensões explicativas de Stemmer, Hayes e Sidman

Skinner defines verbal behavior as an operant shaped and maintained by consequences mediated by others. Therefore, it could be explained through the description of organism-environment functional relations. However, in his categorization of verbal operants Skinner didn’t treat satisfactorily with behaviors of relational type, probably due to the difficulty to determine the controlling variables. This work analyzed Skinnerian approach to verbal behavior and three proposals that aim to extend it (Stemmer, Hayes and Sidman). Stemmer extends the scope of Skinnerian explanation describing relational and syntactic-grammatical learning processes in terms of the establishment of discriminations and generalizations, emphasizing the listening role as a necessary condition to the learning of speaking. Hayes and Sidman present, respectively, the description of a new kind of operant and a new behavioral process underlying relational learning. Although Hayes and Sidman’s proposals are reaching interesting results in teaching relational repertoires, there is not a consensus about what mechanisms and biobehavioral processes are necessary to the language acquisition and development. This work points to the need of a standardization of concepts related to the notions of relational learning, stimuli classes formation, and generalized response classes, in order to redirect the research on verbal behavior. Keywords: verbal behavior; stimulus equivalence; relational frame theory; ostensive events.