January 21, 2016

January 21, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

I didn’t like the tone with which others were talking and each time I tried again to interact with those whose tone I didn’t like, I didn’t like my own tone either. The only communication which mattered to me was one in which my tone as well as the tone of others was enjoyable. This was a huge problem for me as the sound of the voice of others was not like that at all.  When I talked out loud by myself, however, I liked my own voice and I came to terms with my problem of rejection and misunderstanding. 

I was severely and to some extent still am handicapped as I was only able to understand what someone was saying if this person spoke with a voice which had a positive effect on me. When, out of deep frustration, I gave up on trying to talk with others, I began to listen to and hear myself. Around age 35 I identified the sound with which I wanted to speak. As this writing illustrates, I wasn’t stimulated to listen to my own voice as long as I was struggling with the negative effects of the voices of others.  This phenomenon is experienced by millions of people, who have never been able to put their finger on it and who are believed to have attentional problems, low self-esteem or all sorts of so-called mental illnesses. The fact is that this communication issue remains completely unaddressed.  

I don’t feel that big of an urge to talk with others anymore. I know that most people aren't able to have much Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). As I became older, my need to talk out loud with myself also subsided. Then, as I started to write about these matters, my writing was first as intense as my speaking, but as the years went by that tension dissolved. Today’s writing is a milestone as it feels that tension has completely disappeared. I still like to write these words, which are meant to be read by others. If they read these words and hear their own sound they will recognize SVB.

January 20, 2016

January 20, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

In the past, I often experienced an incredible urge to talk. Talking was absolutely the most important thing for me. One can imagine how this must have affected others. To most people my intensity level was off-putting and as a consequence I felt rejected. This in turn made talking even more important to me. At one point, I got so frustrated by the fact that nobody wanted to talk with me in the way that I wanted to talk, that, to prevent more rejection, I completely stopped talking with others. This was the period in which I discovered that I was able to talk with myself. 

At first, it was sad to be talking out loud by myself as it seemed to me as if I had been condemned to it, but soon I found out that this created an opportunity for me that didn’t exist before. I could be alone and not cause any havoc. To my surprise, I was able to say many things I had not been able to say during my conversation with others. I enjoyed talking with myself so much that I spend hours of doing this and I made hundreds of audio-recordings of it. I found it as intriguing to talk out loud with myself and produce these recordings as to listen to these recordings. 

You could say I really got to know myself by listening to the conversations with myself which I had recorded. During this exploration, I figured out what went wrong in my conversations with others. While being alone, I particularly enjoyed the fact that I was able to produce the sound which I wanted to have. As I was alone, I felt stimulated to listen to myself. My circumstances made me aware that nobody apparently had been capable of making me listen to myself. By talking out loud by myself, however, I began to listen to myself. I was fascinated by the fact that others couldn’t make me listen to myself, but that I was capable of doing what they couldn’t.           

January 19, 2016

January 19, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It would be best to read this text out loud so that you can hear the sound of your own voice. These words make you pay attention to how you sound when you as a speaker produce Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB). It may never have occurred to you, but depending on whether you listen to yourself while you are speaking, you are making a different sound. 

Each time that you are not listening to yourself, even while reading this text, you produce Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB). The quality of the sound of your speaking voice will improve by listening to it, but it deteriorates when you are no longer listening to it. Similarly, your covert private speech becomes coherent and orderly only when you express it in your public speech. By saying out loud what you are thinking, you bring your private speech into public speech and you can listen to what you are thinking. 

You can, of course, also, as meditators have done, quietly observe what you are thinking, but such quiet observation will not and cannot make you listen to yourself. The practice of quiet self-observation about what one is thinking to oneself without expressing it in public speech will only enhance your NVB as your private speech is never really listened to. Listening is an observing-behavior which can only occur while one is speaking. 

In NVB our private speech is not considered to be functionally related to  public speech, kept out of our public speech and silenced. The so-called quieting down of the mind by means of meditation, by ignoring the relationship between our private speech and our public speech, is an illusion. Private speech, referred to as the mind, is misconstrued as it is no longer considered to be part of public speech that now goes on privately within our own skin. Meditation is useless as only by expressing and by listening to our private speech can we achieve peace and SVB. We cannot meditate towards having better communication and relationship.  

January 18, 2016

January 18, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

It is often stated that our speech is impaired because presumably we are not listening to each other. I think the exact opposite is the case:  speech is impaired because we are not listening to ourselves.  Voices of others cannot become conditioned reinforcers for attending to what is  said as long as our own voice has not been listened to and validated. 

Why would someone want to listen to you if you are not listening to him or to her? Besides, we are biologically inclined to listen to those who listen to us. We would not survive if we would listen to those who are not listening to us. Those who are not listening to us threaten us and are perceived as being against us. When autistic children don’t respond to their parent’s vocal instructions, they are said to lack basic listener literacy. The reason why this occurs has not yet been fully considered. 

Whenever the parent speaks with Voice I, he or she has an aversive effect on the child. The child responds to Voice I with avoidance or escape behavior. If, on the other hand, the parent speaks long enough with Voice II, the child will manifest approach behavior and become attentive to learning. Thus, Voice I increases autistic behavior, while Voice II decreases it. 

Since only Voice II can become a conditioned reinforcer for attending, a listener emersion protocol to induce basic listener literacy needs to consist of Voice II commands. As long as there are Voice I commands, such commands reinforce already existing avoidance and escape behavioral patterns. Also, emersion of autistic children in the vocal demands of others cannot and will not bring their attention to how they sound when they themselves are calmly speaking.

January 17, 2016

January 17, 2016

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Verbal Engineer

Dear Reader,

Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) is based on automatic reinforcement. Automatic reinforcement constitutes the correspondence between the sound of your voice which you produce and what hear when you listen to yourself while you speak. Thus, automatic reinforcement of speech occurs because of the joining of your speaking and listening behavior. 

Someone must stimulate you to accomplish SVB, the joining of speaking and listening behavior. This text may stimulate you a little bit, but it would be much better if I could talk with you and let you listen to how I sound while I listen to myself while I speak. I will reinforce you when you ‘parrot’ Voice II. Once you produce Voice II, you will agree with me that reinforcement of Voice II hasn’t happened very often and that is why it is happening at such a low response rate in our lives.  

Students, who have been in my psychology class for the duration of a whole semester, have acquired conditioned reinforcement for the correspondence between listening and speaking behavior, as they were reinforced for the production of Voice II.  In the past Voice II was not reinforcing as nobody told you to listen to yourself. You were only told to listen to others.   

People tell me all the time that they have never listened to themselves prior to me telling them to do so. It often seems as if I am giving them permission to listen to themselves. Once they have been given that permission they experience and understand what SVB is. Prior to learning about this “ear-opener” people report being afraid to listen to themselves and not liking how they sound. New learning becomes possible because conditioned reinforcement results in the behavioral cusp called SVB.