The Use of a Stimulus Control Transfer Procedure to Teach Motivation-Controlled Mands to Children With Autism

Abstract

Social participation of children with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in natural environments can be enhanced by teaching them to communicate spontaneously, at least in situations where they have the motivation to access specific items or activities by controlling the amount of access for these stimuli. The purpose of this study was to determine if mand training, using a stimulus control transfer procedure would promote acquisition and generalization of mands for specific activities or objects evoked by motivating operations. Measurement variables included the frequency of motivation controlled (MO) versus multiply controlled mands during discrete trial training on a variety of verbal operants. Using a concurrent multiple baseline design across participants, visual analysis indicated that MO mands for out-of-view items increased substantially with generalization across targets, staff, and environments for three of the four participants. One participant did not respond to intervention to the same extent as others.