EMERGENCE OF THE SKILLS THAT DEFINE NAMING IN CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Abstract

Individuals with autism lack flexibility to emit novel language. We explored the emergence of the skills that define the naming capacity in four young children with autism who received an early intensive behavioral intervention. They learned to tact objects or pictures (i.e., saying the name when seeing the object) then we probed, with no prompts or reinforcement, the emergence of selecting the same objects(pointing to the object or picture when hearing the name); they also learned to select a different set of items and we probed the emergence of tacts. Initially, two children did not demonstrate the emergence of any relation and the other two demonstrated the emergence of the selections. The procedure was repeated 15-21 months later. The first children demonstrated the emergence of the selections and the remaining children demonstrated the emergence of both selections and tacts. The results suggest that both selections and tacts can emerge in children with autism when they are taught with specific behavioral procedures.