November 23, 2014

November 23, 2014

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Behaviorist

Dear Reader, 

There has been a lot of talk about how progress is supposed to be made. Once in a while we hear scientists speak about bringing different disciplines together, increasing collaboration and informing each other about what is going on in their neck of the woods. To the knowledge of this writer, none of this has ever led to making the distinction between Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) and Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). Among scientist there is an implicit assumption of objectivity. By presenting data, integration of disciplines is miraculously believed to occur. The unity of science, based on the fact that scientists are dealing with the natural world, is only an issue because of NVB. The lack of  interaction between the different fields, which has led to fragmentation, is based on absence of SVB. 

The presence of problem behaviors attracts our attention, while the absence of problems behaviors receives little or no attention at all. NVB is problem behavior, while SVB is communication that is  without any problems. Most people find SVB hard to imagine, but SVB can’t be imagined, while NVB is imagined. NVB is based on guess work, while SVB is based on empirical evidence. There is no need to explain SVB, because it is evident that it works. Only in SVB do we understand each other and agree with each other. Only in SVB do we realize that NVB is a total waste of time. All we need to know about NVB is that it is not SVB. It is the distinction itself which matters, not SVB or NVB. 

Whether we are dealing with a head-banging autistic child, a drug addict, an alcoholic, a criminal, a mental health patient, or an incompetent parent, problem behaviors make everything that is good go down the drain. As long as the difference between SVB and NVB has not been made clear, we will remain stuck with NVB. SVB derives from the basic research that was based on nonverbal animal models. We may not like to hear this, but we are animals. Animals are non-verbal and our verbal behavior has a non-verbal origin. Likewise, head banging, addiction, criminality, mental health issues and incompetent parenting signify problems that are involved in the transition from being nonverbal to becoming verbal. People behave in problematic ways, because they don’t have any other way of communicating. Although they may not lack in verbal ability, their nonverbal expressions cause them problems because they acquired a verbal bias, which makes them deaf to their own sound. 

Functionally speaking, there is no real difference between the self-injurious behavior of the autistic, the food-obsession of the morbidly obese, the suicidality of the chronically depressed, the overdosing addict, the hyper active,  unfocused child, the recidivating, cunning criminal or the physically, emotionally or sexually abusive parent. All of these behaviors may look as if they are irrational, but they are not. There are lots of rational reasons why people actually act this way, but in order to fully understand this, we must first need to achieve a different way of communicating. Only SVB will allow us to acknowledge that these behaviors are in fact actual attempts to communicate something. 

All our human problem behaviors fall into the category of NVB, which signifies the absence of SVB, that is, the absence of real communication. Thus, our problems can be solved and prevented if we have SVB. As long as the aforementioned behaviors continue, NVB continues. Problem behaviors have continued, because we haven’t viewed them as being a function of how we communicate. Failed attempts at solving problem behaviors have demoralizing effects on those who tried to effect change. Only those who know the difference between SVB and NVB will not be disappointed, because they see the change that is possible and they know how to implement that change. 

  

The less choices we have, that is, the less behavioral variability, the more problems we accumulate. NVB can viewed as the institutionalization of our spoken communication. It has given us less and less choices and, consequently, more and more people are acting out. SVB, by contrast, liberates us from the rigid, hierarchical, predetermined, coercive ways in which we have been expected to talk.

During SVB we can talk simultaneously or we can experience confrontation. Rather than preventing confrontation, this enhances our interaction, which becomes more lively and interesting. SVB proves that NVB has prevented the confrontation and didn’t allow us to be alive while we communicate. 

Focus on problems, a basic characteristic of NVB, has hijacked all communication. Supposedly, we are better off once our problems are gone. NVB is the perpetuation of and the preoccupation with pathological behavior. NVB makes it seem as if we address and solve problems, but NVB doesn’t and can't replace what was problematic. We merely distract ourselves and take our attention away from the problem, but we fail to understand what sets off or what pays off the problem? NVB has been going on forever, because it is reinforced. If we don’t understand how the success of NVB prevents SVB, our behavior will continue to get worse. We must understand the triggers and pay offs for NVB.

A common trigger of aggression in autistic children is increased academic demands. Similarly, when people are in a learning situation for SVB, acting-out-NVB-habits are triggered. Any environment of positivity, openness, calmness, sensitivity and focus, which is necessary for and maintained by SVB, is taken advantage of and instantly trashed by people with negative NVB habits. Unless enough SVB has occurred to extinguish these NVB habits, there will be more and more episodes of NVB.

The classes of controlling variables, the pay-off for NVB, cut across all people. They neither depend on race, gender, culture, SES, language, nationality, religion, education or profession. All people are motivated in precisely the exact same way to have NVB or SVB. This is why it is so important to look at why we behave either way. Our overrated different back grounds don’t involve our common ancestry. To understand how we interact with each other, function or biology is much more important than form or topography. Why we say things is more important then what or how we say things. 

When we look at why we communicate the way we do, we talk about reinforcement, function, motivation, purpose or intend. When two persons sit across from each other at the dinner table and a burning candle is standing in between them,  one of them can blow out the candle. Regardless who does this, both will be in darkness when this happens. If neither one of them blows out the candle, they have their conversation by the light of the candle. The candle is either burning or it is not. There is light or there is darkness. Such is the lawfulness of the natural world. Blowing out the candle compares to NVB, but keeping it burning is SVB. This is not a metaphor, but a scientific fact.

Attention-seeking in autism can involve someone is banging his or her head at a wall, slapping his or her own face or poking his or her own eyes. In NVB we demand, divert, get or dominate the attention with our verbal and our nonverbal expressions. Although we are verbal, our responses are primarily caused by respondent rather than by operant behavior. We may continue to talk until we are blue, but our conversation isn’t going anywhere, because we are trying to avoid rather than connect with each other. Task and social avoidance are quite apparent in autism, but not in our NVB, in which they are equally present. People escape from the conversation as long as there is aversive stimulation.

In SVB there is no aversive stimulation. Only in SVB do we really communicate. The central message of NVB is: “leave me alone”, but the central message of SVB is “let’s talk.” NVB may get us off the hook, but it ignores the fact that we are poor communicators. The mother of the child who collapses on the floor and throws a temper tantrum in the supermarket because it wants candy, is inclined to cave in, because the child stops screaming and the embarrassment towards the people who see the child misbehave is avoided. Likewise, because we don’t want to create a scene, we give others what they want and cave in to their attention-seeking demands, but we inadvertently reinforce NVB.

Just as the child learns to accelerate its behavior responses high enough, by screaming and by rolling on the floor, to get what he or she wants, we also intensify the punitive effects of our NVB, to force others into submission, humiliation and into giving us what we demand. Our NVB is forceful, harsh and punishing, while our SVB is reinforcing. 

This author wonders why many people enjoy playing violent video games and watching violent movies and reality shows? It seems clear that also non-autistic people seek sensory reinforcement. The autistic tries to create interesting sensory displays with his or her stereo typical behaviors, while most us support NVB, because we too crave stronger and stronger forms of stimulation. These forms of stimulation are legitimized because they are provided by our entertainment and our computers.

Another question this author has, is why so many people nowadays are addicted to noise? Is it, just like the autistic’s rocking behavior, an attempt to find homeostasis? If over-stimulation and under-stimulation is aversive and if rocking is maintained by automatic negative reinforcement, is it then not plausible that NVB is also the consequence of our need for homeostasis? In NVB we are either over-stimulated or under-stimulated, but we are never stimulated in the way that optimizes our performance. Since SVB is so rare in our lives, our bodies are often dis-regulated by stress. What we consider to be our comfort zone is either a demand for stimulation or a demand for the absence of stimulation. In both cases our NVB maintains a need for stimulation which is absolutely unhealthy.

It is believed that autistic individuals experience endogenous stimulation as a consequence of their self-injurious behavior. This biological process also seems to be happening in the bodies of those who engage in NVB. Even when we are not literally hurting ourselves, why do we still get a kick out of seeing other people getting hurt? This biological process occurs in sports, politics, wars, crime and in psychopathology. In addition, we self-torture in the name of our religion, which, according to this author, also prevents our SVB. What this comparison of autistic behavior with NVB hopefully shows is that these behaviors are not just random, but always have a purpose. To understand both autistic behavior and NVB, we must analyze the multiple functions it can serve. We keep having NVB because we don't know how to have SVB. Once we know how to have SVB, we stop having NVB.