Abstract
Mands for information (MFIs) play an important role in language development and are important for successfully acquiring new information from one’s environment. Yet many individuals with autism do not acquire mands for information without direct teaching. Research has demonstrated effective procedures for teaching all “wh” forms, except for “why.” This study investigated procedures to teach the MFI “why” under control of the establishing operation and examined the extent to which teaching resulted in generalization. The intervention was effective in establishing the MFI “why” for 3 children with autism, and generalization to novel scenarios occurred for all participants.
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Author Note
We thank Cassidy Medina, Priti Nagaraj, Shaji Haq, Linda LeBlanc, and Layla Sump for their contributions to this project.
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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.
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Appendix
Appendix
Behavior Scores for Procedural Integrity
Treatment Integrity for Baseline, Posttraining, and Generalization Probes
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Did the experimenter set up the antecedent according to the scenario description?
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Did the experimenter provide the information if the response was correct?
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Did the experimenter terminate the trial if the response was incorrect?
Treatment Integrity for Mand Training
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Did the experimenter set up the antecedent according to the scenario description?
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Did the experimenter implement the correct prompt delay (0 s or 3 s)?
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Did the experimenter intersperse the MFI trials with regular language programming?
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Did the experimenter provide the information if the response was correct?
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5.
Did the experimenter terminate the trial if the response was incorrect?
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Valentino, A.L., Fu, S.B. & Padover, J.L. Teaching Mands for Information Using “Why” to Children With Autism. Analysis Verbal Behav 35, 245–257 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-019-00113-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-019-00113-1