A Clinical Tutorial on Methods to Capture and Contrive Establishing Operations to Teach Mands

Mands are consistently described as critical learning targets for members of vulnerable populations in need of language intervention (Ala'i-Rosales et al., 2018; Michael, 1988; Sundberg, 2004). Reviews of the literature demonstrate a prevalence of the mand in the applied literature (e.g., DeSouza et al., 2017). Yet, gaps between research and practice exist in scientific fields resulting in decades-long delays between identification of evidence-based approaches and adoption in everyday use. The mand may be particularly at risk for procedural drift in practice settings given the sometimes elusive nature of establishing operations (EOs) and the relative complexity of procedures used to contrive them. Thus, the purpose of this tutorial is to build upon prior conceptual (e.g., Shafer, 1994) and applied (e.g., Cengher et al., 2022) reviews on mands to provide a contemporary, in-depth review of three procedures used to contrive EOs: incidental teaching, the interrupted chains procedure, and programmed restriction of reinforcers. Recent examples from the literature are discussed along with considerations for use in practice. Resources to support implementation including integrity checklists and role play scenarios are provided.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40617-024-00985-3.