Using intraverbal prompts to increase divergent intraverbal responses by a child with autism

Abstract

We examined the effectiveness of intraverbal prompts to increase the number of divergent responses to categorical questions composed of compound stimuli (e.g., Name some red things) for a 6‐year‐old child with autism. The intraverbal prompts involved providing the function, feature, and class of the target responses. A multiple probe across behaviors design was used. Results indicated that the child's total number of divergent responses was increased and maintained during 2‐week follow‐up probe trials. Novel responses were observed across conditions.

Increasing Response Diversity to Intraverbals in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…Consistent with previous research (Feng et al 2017;Grannan and Rehfeldt 2012;Lee et al 2017), the results of this study indicated that children with ASD acquired complex intraverbal behavior involving both convergent and divergent control. The FFC intraverbal prompts effectively increased the number of divergent responses to all three questions after the completion of the training.…”

“…The dependent variables included (a) the number of divergent responses and (b) the number of novel responses each time a question was asked in probe trials. Divergent responses refer to correct and varied multiple responses to each question (Lee et al 2017). Correct responses were defined as the child independently provided answers relevant to the question within 3 s upon hearing the question asked.…”

“…A novel response was defined as a correct response that was not introduced by the instructor or said by the child in previous trials when the question was asked (Lee et al 2017). Following the above example, suppose the child said, "red apples, fire trucks, cherries, dragon fruits, stop signs, red grapes" in the next trial.…”

“…Although picture prompts were effective, they can potentially develop prompt dependence, as a child can still provide accurate responses by attending only to the pictures while ignoring the antecedent verbal stimulus (e.g., a categorical question) during instruction. To avoid such a problem, Lee et al (2017) developed an intraverbal prompting procedure using the function, feature, and class (FFC) of target objects to prompt for correct responses to categorical questions. For example, an intraverbal prompt for a strawberry in the category of red things can be: "You can eat it.…”

“…In response to the call for research in multiple control of intraverbal behavior, the present study sought to extend Lee et al (2017) by using the FFC intraverbal prompting procedure to increase response diversity to three questions modified based on TTCT. The research questions include (a) to what extent does the procedure increase the number of divergent responses provided to the target questions?, (b) to what extent does the procedure increase the number of novel responses provided to the target questions?, and (c) to what extent does the procedure increase the number of responses provided to generalization questions?…”