We evaluated whether intraverbal and reverse intraverbal behavior emerged following listener training in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Six participants were each taught three sets of three "when?" questions in listener training. A multiple baseline design across behaviors (stimulus sets) was used to assess the effects of…

Responses of nine autistic, nine behavior disordered, and nine normal 6 to 12 year olds to verbal and nonverbal requests formed a cumulative, unidimensional hierarchy based on the individual patterns of responses, with verbal requests for verbal responses eliciting the least compliance and verbal requests for nonverbal responses the most. (Author)

This study reports the procedures used to reduce the relative frequency of psychotic speech in an autistic child, and to produce verbal behavior appropriate for more conventional psychotherapeutic intervention. The results indicated that the subject's verbal behavior was clearly controlled by the token reinforcement schedule used. (Author)