Comparing the Effect of Echoic and Listener Responding in the Development of Complex Intraverbals

Alzrayer (2024) asked which prompt type works better for teaching complex intraverbals to kids with autism.

Four children joined. The team used a multiple-baseline design across kids.

Echoic prompts were tested against listener prompts. The goal was to see which one made new, untaught answers appear.

Echoic prompting won. Three out of four kids started giving complex intraverbal answers only after echoic prompts.

Listener prompting helped fewer kids. The study says echoic first is the safer bet.

Smith et al. (2016) once showed that fun listener bingo alone could spark intraverbals. That result seems to clash with the new finding, but the methods differ. Smith used a game packed with extra play and praise; Alzrayer used plain listener prompts with no added reinforcement. The fun factor may explain the gap.

Shillingsburg et al. (2019) also got emergent intraverbals by quickly mixing old tact and listener trials right before the test. Their tactic is different from both echoic and simple listener prompts, giving you a third tool to try.

Alzrayer (2020) used intraverbal webbing to build flexible answering. The 2024 study keeps the same design and population but swaps webbing for a head-to-head prompt contest, updating the how-to menu for BCBAs.

If you run verbal behavior programs, start complex intraverbal targets with echoic prompts. They produced faster gains in most kids here and are easy to add to any table session. Keep listener prompts in your pocket, but don’t expect them to work alone.