Effects of Motivating Operation on Mand for Information of Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder*

Abstract

The current study investigated effects of motivating operation on mand for information in a middle school student with autism spectrum disorders(ASD). Teaching students to mand for information can help them learn advanced language skills, increase their communications skills, and aid in decreasing challenging behaviors. However, students with ASD often do not learn to mand for information without structured teaching. The target responses of this study were mands for information using “what”, “where” and “which” and used a multiple probe design across behaviors to evaluate the effectiveness of the intervention. Target items were selected from high preferred items identified during preference assessments prior to the experiment. During the base line, target items were presented for abolishing operation(AO) of the items. A correct response was immediately reinforced by manded information about items. If the participant emitted no response or an incorrect response during the 5 s delay, the echoic prompt was provided by the instructor. During the intervention condition, the procedures were same as the baseline procedure except absense of the AO, thus EO was in effect for the target items. The EO procedure was effective on increasing mands for information and the participant were able to generalize this skill to novel items.