The present study replicates and extends previous research on the use of video modeling (VM) with voiceover instruction to train staff to implement discrete-trial instruction (DTI). After staff trainees reached the mastery criterion when teaching an adult confederate with VM, they taught a child with a developmental disability using DTI. The results showed that the staff trainees' accurate implementation of DTI remained high, and both child participants acquired new skills. These findings provide additional support that VM may be an effective method to train staff members to conduct DTI.

The current investigation evaluated repertoires that may be related to performance on auditory-to-visual conditional discrimination training with 9 students who had been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The skills included in the assessment were matching, imitation, scanning, an auditory discrimination, and a visual discrimination. The results of the skills assessment showed that 4 participants failed to demonstrate mastery of at least 1 of the skills. We compared the outcomes of the assessment to the results of auditory-visual conditional discrimination training and found that training outcomes were related to the assessment outcomes for 7 of the 9 participants. One participant who did not demonstrate mastery of all assessment skills subsequently learned several conditional discriminations when blocked training trials were conducted. Another participant who did not demonstrate mastery of the auditory discrimination skill subsequently acquired conditional discriminations in 1 of the training conditions. We discuss the implications of the assessment for practice and suggest additional areas of research on this topic.

We compared the effectiveness of three training procedures, echoic and tact prompting plus error correction and a cues-pause-point (CPP) procedure, for increasing intraverbals in 2 children with autism. We also measured echoic behavior that may have interfered with appropriate question answering. Results indicated that echoic prompting with error correction was most effective and the CPP procedure was least effective for increasing intraverbals and decreasing echoic behavior.

The present investigation compared acquisition of intraverbals and listener behavior by function, feature, and class (FFC) for two children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). We also measured tacts during listener training to evaluate whether higher levels of tacts predicted the emergence of intraverbal behavior following training. The results showed that intraverbal training required as many or fewer sessions to reach the mastery criterion than listener training by FFC, and intraverbal training consistently produced emergent listener behavior. In comparison, listener training by FFC did not consistently lead to the emergence of intraverbal behavior.

“Resistance to change” represents a core symptom of autism that we conceptualized and assessed as resulting in part due to factors known to govern free‐operant choice. During a free‐choice baseline, participants chose between problematic, resistive responses and an appropriate alternative response. During the asymmetrical‐choice condition, we delivered their most highly preferred item if the participant chose the alternative response (i.e., differential reinforcement of alternative behavior [DRA]). During the guided‐ (Experiment 1) and singular‐ (Experiment 2) choice conditions, we prompted participants to choose the alternative response and then delivered their most highly preferred item (i.e., DRA with escape extinction). All participants learned to tolerate (Experiment 1) or choose (Experiment 2) the alternative response when we combined DRA with escape extinction. After exposure to escape extinction, two participants showed strong maintenance effects with DRA alone. We discuss these finding relative to the effects of DRA and escape extinction on resistance to change.

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We evaluated differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) plus prompting to increase peer-directed mands for preferred items using a picture exchange communication system (PECS). Two nonvocal individuals with autism participated. Independent mands with a peer increased with the implementation of DRA plus prompting for both participants. In addition, peers engaged in brief social interactions following the majority of mands for leisure items. These results suggest that teaching children to use PECS with peers may be one way to increase manding and social interactions in individuals with limited or no vocal repertoire.

Some children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) display persistent errors that are not responsive to commonly used prompting or error-correction strategies; one possible reason for this is that the behavior-consequence relations are not readily discriminable (Davison & Nevin, 1999). In this study, we increased the discriminability of the behavior-consequence relations in conditional-discrimination acquisition tasks for 3 children with ASD using schedule manipulations in concert with a unique visual display designed to increase the saliency of the differences between consequences in effect for correct responding and for errors. A multiple baseline design across participants was used to show that correct responding increased for all participants, and, after 1 or more exposures to the intervention, correct responding persisted to varying degrees across participants when the differential reinforcement baseline was reintroduced to assess maintenance. These findings suggest that increasing the saliency of behavior-consequence relations may help to increase correct responding in children with ASD who exhibit persistent errors.