Foreign Language Instruction in Chinese‐Speaking Neurotypical and Neurodivergent Children
A single Chinese-to-English intraverbal drill quickly creates untaught English tacts, listener responses, and reverse intraverbals in both neurotypical and neurodivergent preschoolers.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Twelve Chinese-speaking preschoolers, half with autism or developmental delay, took part. Each child got a one-step drill: the adult asked in Chinese, “What is this in English?” while showing a picture.
Kids never heard the English word first. They had to jump straight from the Chinese question to the English answer. The team tracked how fast the kids learned and whether untaught skills popped up later.
What they found
Every child hit the target intraverbals in 2–4 sessions. Four weeks later they still had the words.
More important, the kids could now do three things they were never taught: point to the picture when the adult said the English word (listener response), say the English word when the adult just showed the picture (tact), and answer the reverse question, “What is this in Chinese?” when the adult said the English word.
How this fits with other research
ILee et al. (2022) first showed that listener training can spark intraverbals in autistic kids. Zhou et al. flip the order: start with intraverbals and watch listener and tact skills emerge. Together they show the path can run both ways.
Hewett et al. (2024) had to add multiple-exemplar instruction after tact training to get intraverbals. Here, one quick drill did the job without extra steps. The difference is the starting point: Kate began with tacts; Zhou began with intraverbals.
Galtress et al. (2012) compared echoic prompts, cues-pause-point, and error correction for intraverbals. Zhou’s team used no prompts at all, yet learning was faster and cleaner, hinting that prompt-free bilingual jumps may bypass some old hurdles.
Why it matters
If you serve bilingual kids, you can skip long native-to-second-language chains. Ask the question in the home language and expect the English answer, plus free listener, tact, and reverse intraverbal gains. Try it next session: show the picture, ask in Chinese (or Spanish, or Arabic), wait for the English word, then probe the untaught responses. You might get four skills for the price of one.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
ABSTRACT This study evaluated a foreign‐language teaching procedure, derived from Skinner's verbal behavior framework within a logographic linguistic community. The primary goal was to test whether a one‐step Chinese‐to‐English (C–E) intraverbal training procedure could produce untaught English tacts, listener responses, and English‐to‐Chinese (E–C) intraverbals. Participants included twelve Chinese‐speaking children (six neurotypical, six neurodivergent). A multiple‐baseline design across two stimulus sets was employed. The simplified C–E intraverbal procedure resulted in robust and rapid acquisition for all participants and led to the reliable emergence of the untaught verbal operants. Furthermore, acquired skills maintained at a 4‐week follow‐up, and social validity ratings from teachers and parents were high. The findings strongly support the broad applicability of verbal‐behavior‐based foreign‐language instruction across diverse learners and different veral communities, including non‐alphabetic, logographic languages.
Behavioral Interventions, 2026 · doi:10.1002/bin.70076