Acquisition and generalization of divergent intraverbal responses in children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder
Add a 30-second fluency timing to FFC intraverbal drills—kids give more varied answers and use them on new questions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two preschoolers with autism learned to answer FFC questions like “Tell me something that is red and you eat.”
The team added fluency timings: each child had to give five different correct answers in 30 seconds.
They tracked how many new answers popped up and whether the kids used the skill on untrained questions.
What they found
Both children hit the speed goal in four sessions or less.
They started giving fresh answers to questions they had never practiced.
The quick pace plus praise made the skill stick without extra drills.
How this fits with other research
GBrodhead et al. (2019) tried the same FFC questions but no timing. Their kids learned answers yet rarely used them on new questions. Adding a stop-watch seems to close that gap.
Walpole et al. (2007) warned that most studies skip checks for divergent control. Thakore et al. (2022) took the hint and built speed plus variety into one package.
Alzrayer (2020) used intraverbal webbing to spark varied answers. The 2022 fluency method reaches the same goal faster and with a simple timer.
Why it matters
If you run intraverbal programs, tack on a 30-second timing once the child knows two or three answers. Ask for five different ones before the sand runs out. You will likely see new answers appear sooner and carry over to novel questions, saving you extra teaching time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractThis study examined the effects of intraverbal instruction with a fluency training component on the acquisition of divergent intraverbal responding and generalization to function, feature, and class (FFC) questions with two children (6 and 8 years old) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The instructional targets were chosen based on a conceptual analysis of prerequisite relations that were likely to be sufficient for intraverbal emergence to occur. It was expected that with these prerequisites in place, direct teaching of a subset of divergent intraverbal responses might generalize across FFC questions. In baseline, participants emitted three or fewer intraverbal responses to most questions. Instruction with tact prompts and transfer‐of‐control trials initially produced only small increases in intraverbal responding, whereas the addition of fluency training quickly produced criterion‐level performance. Further, both participants demonstrated generalization to untrained FFC questions. Pre‐ and post‐tests revealed concomitant increases in responses to reverse intraverbal FFC questions and FFC questions presented in an intraverbal webbing format.
Behavioral Interventions, 2022 · doi:10.1002/bin.1796