Emily A. Jones, Kathleen M. Feeley, & Jennifer Takacs (2007).
Teaching spontaneous responses to young children with autism.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
40, 565-570.
Using a multiple probe design across responses, we demonstrated the
effectiveness of intensive intervention in establishing spontaneous verbal
responses to 2 3-year-old children with autism with generalization to
novel settings involving novel persons. Intervention involved discrete-trial
instruction (i.e., repeated instructional opportunities presented in close proximity
to high rates of reinforcement), specific prompts, and error correction.
Spontaneous responses were defined as specific verbal utterances (e.g.,
the child says “bless you”) following discriminative stimuli that did not
involve explicit vocal directives (e.g., adult sneeze). The development of
effective interventions to address the social-communicative needs of very
young children with autism is discussed.
DESCRIPTORS: autism, spontaneous responses, discrete-trial instruction, generalization