Teaching Children with Autism Extended Verbal Utterances Under Audience Control in the Context of Show-and-Tell
DTT plus praise for three-word answers quickly grows longer show-and-tell speeches in kids with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Dixon and team worked with three children with autism in a regular classroom. They used short DTT trials to teach longer show-and-tell talks. The kids got praise and small toys only when they said three or more words about their item.
Sessions happened during normal show-and-tell time. The teacher gave a prompt like "Tell us about your toy." If the child used a short phrase, the teacher asked, "What else?" Longer answers earned quick rewards.
What they found
All three children started with one-word answers. After DTT plus extra praise for long answers, each child gave full sentences. Their talk stayed long even when rewards came only sometimes.
Parents later reported the kids also spoke more at home about new toys.
How this fits with other research
Loughrey et al. (2014) used instructive feedback to teach category names without extra trials. Dixon adds differential reinforcement to the same DTT frame, showing you can get longer utterances, not just new words.
Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2022) extended DTT to bilingual listener skills. Both studies keep the core DTT shape but push it into new content—Spanish comprehension in one, longer show-and-tell in the other.
ILee et al. (2022) found listener training alone sparked intraverbal answers. Dixon’s work fits here: once kids have the longer show-and-tell form, they may use it in new questions without more teaching.
Why it matters
You can copy this package tomorrow. Run a few five-minute DTT trials before circle time. Reinforce only utterances of three-plus words. Fade rewards slowly and the longer talk stays. It works in the busy classroom you already have.
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Join Free →Before circle time, run five DTT trials: prompt "Tell me about your item," wait for three words, deliver a token and praise, repeat.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The present study evaluated the efficacy of a discrete-trial-training procedure to bring extended verbal behavior under the convergent control of audience and contextual variables during a show-and-tell activity. Three children with autism were exposed initially to a baseline condition in which they were presented with a preferred item and asked to tell the class about it. Following low rates of responding, a differential reinforcement procedure was implemented that reinforced extending the verbal utterance word length beyond baseline levels allowing for an appropriate display of “show-and-tell” behavior. The results show that the procedures were efficacious in application with three children with autism, providing a method that can be conducted in classroom settings to teach a complex form of verbal operant behavior.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2019 · doi:10.1007/s40617-018-0250-z