Development of spontaneous manding in language deficient children.
Teach each mand under the exact real-life cue you want the child to use—new cues won’t work without extra teaching.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four children with severe language delays lived at a state facility. None asked for things on their own.
The team taught each child to mand "more" during two clear moments: when a toy stopped and when food ran out. They used prompts, praise, and small bites of food as rewards. Training happened in the child’s bedroom or dayroom.
Sessions continued until each child asked for "more" without help three times in a row under the trained cue.
What they found
All four kids learned to ask for "more" when the trained cue happened. The cue was the exact situation used in teaching.
When the same item appeared in a new situation, the kids stayed quiet. For example, one boy asked for more juice when his cup was empty, but not when he saw a full jug on the table.
The study showed that spontaneous mands stick to the cue you train. Generalization does not happen on its own.
How this fits with other research
Hattier et al. (2011) extend this idea. They added a quick step: hide the toy to create a strong need, then fade a written script. Their two boys later asked "Where’s [toy]?" in new rooms and with new adults. Adding motivating-operation tricks and script fading helps the mand travel.
Carnett et al. (2016) move the same logic to iPads. They taught minimally verbal children with autism to press "Where is it?" on a speech device. Skills moved to new questions and new places. The 1980 cue-bound lesson still holds: you must teach the exact cue, but now we have SGD and time-delay tools to do it.
Frampton et al. (2024) wrap these lessons into one guide. They tell you to watch for small signs—pointing, reaching, eye shift—before you prompt the mand. These signs show the need is strong and the cue is set. The 1980 paper is cited inside their 2024 tutorial, proving the old finding still steers best practice.
Why it matters
If you want a child to ask for water during gym, train the request while the water fountain is broken and the child is thirsty. Do not expect the mand to pop out later when the fountain works fine. Plan each natural cue into your teaching sequence, then test it in new spots. This saves weeks of extra training and keeps frustration low for both you and the learner.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →List every place and moment you want the child to mand, then run trials in each exact spot before moving to the next.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Six institutionalized children, aged 7-11, with little or no spontaneous vocal manding, were trained to request food items under appropriate natural conditions when snacks were presented. "I want a" was appropriate when an adult presented food in the playroom. "Out" was appropriate when the items were displayed in the hallway, across a half-door barrier from the child. A sequence of steps was trained, through increasingly naturalistic setting and cuing conditions. The two mands were trained in sequence, not concurrently. To encourage "spontaneous" productions, no vocal cuing was provided by the adult. After criterion performance in each step, several probe sessions were conducted for various cuing conditions, adults, and settings. Probes after imitation training showed no spontaneous manding. Thus, failure of manding was not due to production difficulties. In probes after training for "approximately" natural cues, most children showed little transfer to the natural cues. This implies that training for the specific appropriate cues may often be required. However, good transfer generally occurred across persons, and from training room to playroom. Probes also showed that most children did not use one of the trained mands in the stimulus conditions that were appropriate for the other mand. Thus, adding a second mand did not generally disrupt use of the first. However, significant disruption occurred for two children. Finally, at the end of training, extinction training was given for one mand in one setting. Performance of the other mand was little affected. In sum, the appropriate form of a mand depends on specific stimulus and setting characteristics, and these characteristics must be considered in training.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 1980 · doi:10.1901/jaba.1980.13-523