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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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of Verbal Behavior (Skinner, 1957) on behavior analytic research, although not immediate, has steadily increased. Empirical investigations of verbal operants initially focused on mands and tacts, yet other operants such as intraverbals, echoics, and autoclitics have started to receive more attention. Aguirre et al. (2016) reviewed intraverbal research between 2005 and 2015. The results showed an increase in intraverbal research, with studies mostly focused on direct intraverbal training and emergent behavior. The authors noted the substantial increase in intraverbal studies assessing emergence, suggesting a subsequent brief review would be beneficial. The purpose of the current review was to replicate and extend Aguirre et al. In addition to analyzing publication trends and research emphasis, we also identified and quantified the skill sets of participants, the method and components of training, and additional procedural details. The findings show a continued increase in intraverbal research, with empirical evidence supporting prerequisite skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the effects of intraverbal instruction with a fluency training component on the acquisition of divergent intraverbal responding and generalization to function, feature, and class (FFC) questions with two children (6 and 8 years old) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The instructional targets were chosen based on a conceptual analysis of prerequisite relations that were likely to be sufficient for intraverbal emergence to occur. It was expected that with these prerequisites in place, direct teaching of a subset of divergent intraverbal responses might generalize across FFC questions. In baseline, participants emitted three or fewer intraverbal responses to most questions. Instruction with tact prompts and transfer‐of‐control trials initially produced only small increases in intraverbal responding, whereas the addition of fluency training quickly produced criterion‐level performance. Further, both participants demonstrated generalization to untrained FFC questions. Pre‐ and post‐tests revealed concomitant increases in responses to reverse intraverbal FFC questions and FFC questions presented in an intraverbal webbing format. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]