Emergent Intraverbal and Reverse Intraverbal Behavior Following Listener Training in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Teaching kids with ASD to point to "when" answers can make them suddenly say those answers and even flip them around.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Six kids with autism listened to "when?" questions and picked the correct picture.
The trainer asked, "When do you eat lunch?" and the child touched the lunch photo.
No one practiced saying the answers out loud; they only practiced pointing.
What they found
Five kids later said the answers without any teaching.
Three kids could also flip the answers around.
If you asked, "When do you eat lunch?" they said, "At noon." If you then asked, "What do you do at noon?" they said, "Eat lunch."
The skills stayed strong two weeks later.
How this fits with other research
Hewett et al. (2024) got the same result, but they started with naming pictures instead of listening. When naming alone did not work, they added many examples and then the kids spoke.
Zhou et al. (2026) found the same flip-around skill in Chinese-English kids after a short bilingual drill. The new study shows you can get it with English-only listener work.
Galtress et al. (2012) taught intraverbals the old way: lots of echoic prompts and error correction. That works, but the new study shows you can skip direct speaking drills if you build strong listener links first.
Why it matters
You can save time. Teach the child to point to "when" answers, then test if the spoken answers pop out. If they do, you just gained free intraverbals. If not, add more examples like Hewett et al. (2024) did. Either way, you start with listener training, not echoic drills, and you get both forward and reverse answers for free.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We evaluated whether intraverbal and reverse intraverbal behavior emerged following listener training in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Six participants were each taught three sets of three "when?" questions in listener training. A multiple baseline design across behaviors (stimulus sets) was used to assess the effects of listener training. Results showed that intraverbal behavior emerged following listener training for five out of six participants. One participant received additional listener training and intraverbal training before intraverbal behavior emerged. Furthermore, reverse intraverbal responding occurred across all three sets of questions for three of the six participants. Establishing listener behavior may be a pathway for emergent intraverbal and reverse intraverbal responding in children with ASD. Future research could examine what skill repertoire may facilitate such transfer.
, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s40616-021-00164-3