Effects of Tact Prompts on Acquisition and Maintenance of Divergent Intraverbal Responses by a Child With Autism

This study investigated the effects of tact prompts on the acquisition and retention of divergent intraverbal responding to categorical questions involving conditional discriminations. A 6-year-old boy with autism participated in the study. A multiple probe design across behaviors was used. A tact-prompt procedure was implemented. The results suggested that the tact-prompt procedure was effective to establish and increase the number of divergent intraverbal responses to questions across two categories. The child spontaneously emitted novel responses during training and generalization probe sessions, indicating occurrences of response generalization after divergent intraverbal training. Maintenance probes showed that divergent intraverbal responses were maintained at high levels for all target categorical questions 3 weeks after the completion of training.

Evaluation of Intraverbal Responses in Five- to Seven-Year-Old Children

The development of gestural usage as a response to intraverbal stimuli was investigated in 89 five- to seven-year-old school children. A modified version of the Intraverbal Gesture subtest of the Parsons Language Sample was employed. A significant developmental pattern of intraverbal responses was obtained. Implications in terms of the Skinnerian concept of intraverbal behavior are discussed.