The traditional recommendation for sequencing speaker and listener instruction has been to teach listener skills prior to teaching speaker skills. In a review of the research literature prior to 2011, Petursdottir and Carr (2011) concluded that research did not support this recommendation. We reviewed the most recent research on the efficiency of…

We review recommendations for sequencing instruction in receptive and expressive language objectives in early and intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) programs. Several books recommend completing receptive protocols before introducing corresponding expressive protocols. However, this recommendation has little empirical support, and some…

The effects of expressive modeling experiences on the observational learning of generative language by children with severe mental retardation was investigated. All six children (aged six-nine) demonstrated observational learning of responses modeled by their peers. Organizing the modeling experiences according to matrix-training principles…

An approach based on Skinner's (1957) theory of verbal behavior has been developed to understand and teach elementary communication skills to children with autism and developmental disabilities (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, few studies have directly examined the characteristics of emerging language in children with developmental…

A time delay procedure was used to teach three children (ages 5-9) with autism to ask the question "What's that?" when novel stimuli were presented, and generalization of the skill was assessed. Results suggest that children with autism can be taught to ask questions that lead to acquisition of new information. (Author/DB)

This study found that naturalistic conversation training improved the spontaneous speech production of two children (ages three and four) with speech production disabilities. (Author/DB)