Teaching nonvocal children with autism to request for missing items

Abstract

This systematic replication was designed to teach nonvocal children with autism to mand for missing items using an Augmentative Alternative Communication (AAC) system. Consistent with Rodriguez et al. (2017) and Wójcik et al. (2020), we used the interrupted chain procedure with EO‐present and EO‐absent trials. Consistent with Wójcik et al., 2020, we used sufficient exemplar training and activity schedules to establish manding for missing items. Participants were three children with autism, and the design was a nonconcurrent multiple‐baseline design across participants. Following training, all participants requested the missing items during EO‐present trials correctly and refrained from making requests during EO‐absent trials, suggesting that requesting using the AAC system was established as a verbal operant controlled by the appropriate EO, hence, was established as a mand. Correct requesting behavior transferred to new tasks, across skill domains, across people, to new settings, and across time.