Effects of enthusiastic and non‐enthusiastic voice in praise on the behavior of children with autism and typically developing children
Excited praise helps most kids with autism stay engaged, but kids with higher IQ respond fine to a neutral tone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gale et al. (2023) asked whether kids care how excited we sound when we praise.
They worked with children with autism and typically developing peers.
Each child pressed tablet buttons that gave praise in an excited voice or a flat voice.
The team then watched which voice the kids picked more often and how they reacted.
What they found
Most kids with autism chose the excited praise and worked harder for it.
Kids with higher IQ scores did fine with either voice.
The typically developing kids did not favor one voice over the other.
The overall benefit was real but small.
How this fits with other research
Falcomata et al. (2012) also tested praise type with autism. They swapped the words, not the tone, and saw only tiny gains that faded fast.
Rodgers et al. (2021) and Van Gaasbeek et al. (2026) both pooled early ABA studies that shower kids with enthusiastic praise. Their big reviews show clear gains in IQ and daily skills, backing the idea that excited praise is a useful piece of the therapy puzzle.
Robertson et al. (2013) found that adults with autism often miss emotion in voice. Gale’s kids, however, clearly noticed and preferred the happy tone. The gap hints that emotion detection may improve with age or that tasks with clear rewards make tone easier to read.
Why it matters
You can boost motivation right away by sounding upbeat when you praise kids with autism, especially if they have lower IQ scores. Keep your tone lively during trials, and watch for any signs of satiation. For higher-IQ kids, either tone works, so you can save your energy for other teaching moves.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractBehavioral intervention manuals for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) commonly recommend that praise should be delivered in an enthusiastic tone of voice. Only a few studies, however, have explicitly tested this assumption, and results have been mixed. This study therefore compared the effects of enthusiastic and non‐enthusiastic tone of voice in praise on the behavior of children with ASD. We also examined how typically developing (TD) children responded to enthusiastic and non‐enthusiastic praise. Participants were 21 children with ASD matched on developmental age with the chronological age of 20 TD children. The effects of enthusiastic and non‐enthusiastic praise were assessed using an application on a tablet computer designed to isolate tone of voice as a variable in vocally delivered praise. Two buttons produced the same six praise statements, one with an enthusiastic tone of voice and one with a neutral tone of voice. Results showed that the children with ASD, on average, allocated more responding to the square on the tablet computer producing enthusiastic praise as compared to the square producing non‐enthusiastic praise. In addition, higher rates of responding to non‐enthusiastic praise correlated positively with higher IQ, suggesting that non‐enthusiastic praise was more effective for children with ASD with higher cognitive scores. The TD children, in contrast, did not allocate more responding to either the squares, suggesting that tone of voice in praise was not an important variable for the behavior of TD children.
Behavioral Interventions, 2023 · doi:10.1002/bin.1901