A comparison of textual and echoic prompts was conducted to determine which form of prompts was more effective for teaching intraverbal behavior to a 6-year-old boy with autism. A multiple baseline design across three sets of questions measured (a) the number of fullsentence target answers, (b) partial answers that made sense, and (c) partial answers that did not make sense, or no response, to direct questions asked. A fading procedure using either scripted textual or scripted echoic prompts was employed to evoke the child's correct answers. Although both forms of prompts were effective, results indicated that textual prompts were much more effective. These findings suggest that textual prompts may be effective in teaching complex skills to children with autism. One of the most prominent characteristics of children with autism is a profound delay or impairment in their expressive language (Secan, Egel, & Tilley, 1989). Given the recognized impact of severe language and communication delays on all facets of the child's life, a thorough understanding of all variables that contribute to successful treatment is needed (Shafer, 1993). These language problems are quite complex and usually require specialized intervention programs. Various effective strategies, including functional communication training, incidental teaching, pivotal response training, social inclusion, speech intelligibility training, and discrete-trial training, have been developed by researchers for teaching language skills to persons with autism and other severe handicaps (Koegel, Koegel, & Dunlap, 1996; Lo-This investigation was conducted by the first author as a component of the masters degree in special education at Gonzaga University, Spokane, Washington. We thank Michael Finkel and Abigail Gouveia for their support with this project.
In the current investigation, a concurrent operant paradigm was used with 3 young children who displayed severe problem behaviors to identify behavioral function. The children were given a series of choice options varying the availability of parent attention, access to preferred toys, and level of demand. The results showed that all children displayed differential patterns of behavior that appeared to be influenced by the presence or absence of attention and demands, suggesting a behavioral function. The results extended previous applications of reinforcer assessment procedures by using choice to identify antecedent conditions that set the occasion for problem behavior.
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