Comparing Manipulations to Enhance Stimulus Salience during Intraverbal Training.

Abstract

Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may have difficulty acquiring intraverbal behavior. The present study compared manipulations of stimulus salience (i.e., volume increase, elongation) to teach intraverbals (e.g., "You drink [juice]" and "You drink from [cup]") to three participants diagnosed with ASD whose pre-treatment responding suggested restricted stimulus control. We used an adapted alternating treatments design to compare the efficacy and efficiency of increased volume, elongated, and unmodified antecedent verbal stimuli on correct intraverbal responses. Results suggested the volume increase condition was the most efficacious and efficient for two participants, whereas all conditions were similarly efficacious and efficient for one participant. High levels of responding maintained as the stimulus salience manipulations were removed.