Typically developing children engage in frequent question asking (Brown, 1968). When question asking is under the control of an establishing operation (EO) and the behavior results in information that is specific to the EO, these questions may be functionally classified as mands for information (Michael, 1988). Unfortunately, many children with autism do not learn to mand for information without structured teaching (Charlop & Milstein, 1989; Endicott & Higbee, 2007).
Early studies established that question asking could be taught to individuals with disabilities using prompting, fading, chaining, differential reinforcement (Bondy & Erickson, 1976; Hung, 1977; Twardosz & Baer, 1973), and videotaped rehearsal and feedback (Knapczyk, 1989). Sundberg, Loeb, Hale, and Eigenheer (2002) noted that earlier studies may have neglected the role of the EO by teaching when an EO was not present and/or by using contrived reinforcers (e.g., tokens) rather than functional reinforcers (e.g., information). Unfortunately, this may result in less functional use of the mand. Several studies have effectively contrived EOs and used functional reinforcers to teach the mands, “what?” (e.g., Williams, Donley, & Keller, 2000), “who?,” “where?,” (e.g., Endicott & Higbee, 2007; Lechago, Carr, Grow, Love, & Almason, 2010; Sundberg et al., 2002), “which?,” and “when?” (e.g., Shillingsburg, Valentino, Bowen, Bradley, & Zavatkay, 2011).
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To date, no studies have investigated strategies for teaching children with autism to mand for information using the response form “how.” This may be due to the unique challenge of arranging multiple opportunities for teaching while ensuring that an EO controls the response. In other response forms such as “who” and “where,” trials can be arranged such that the information provided differs each trial, ensuring the information remains valuable. For example, the mand, “who?” might be taught when a child is told that someone has a preferred toy. The natural reinforcer for the mand would be information about who has her toy. Multiple learning opportunities can be arranged when information about who has the toy differs each trial. In contrast, when a child mands, “how?,” and information specific to the request is provided, the information may lose its value because the individual learns to complete the task independently, rendering the information unnecessary. This unique characteristic presents clinical challenges in teaching the mand for information “how.” For example, if a therapist contrives a situation in which there is an EO for information, prompts the child to ask “how,” and provides the information, there may be no other opportunities using the same scenario to present additional teaching trials. The purpose of the present study was to teach a child with autism to mand for information using “how.” To ensure a sufficient number of trials, several scenarios were used to provide multiple opportunities to teach the mand. Additionally, independence with each task was continually assessed to determine if an EO was present.
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Category: WHEN
