Abstract
The present study evaluated the emergence of intraverbal responses following tact training with three adolescents diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders. Participants were taught to tact the name of a cartoon character (e.g., “What is the name of this monster?” [“Simon”]) and that character’s preferred food (e.g., “What food does this monster eat?” [“Chips”]). Following tact training, test probes revealed the emergence of untrained vocal intraverbals. Specifically, in the absence of pictures, participants stated the name of the character when given the food preference (e.g., “Which monster eats chips?”), and stated the food when given the character name (e.g., “What food does Simon eat?”). The findings are discussed with reference to the growing literature on verbal behavior and derived relational responding.
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Acknowledgments
The research was supported by a Sidney W. and Janet R. Bijou Fellowship award (2011) to the first author from the Society for the Advancement of Behavior Analysis (SABA). The authors thank Einar Ingvarsson and several anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of this article.
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The present study was conducted as part of the first author’s doctoral research under the supervision of the third author.
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May, R.J., Hawkins, E. & Dymond, S. Brief Report: Effects of Tact Training on Emergent Intraverbal Vocal Responses in Adolescents with Autism. J Autism Dev Disord 43, 996–1004 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1632-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-012-1632-7