Assessing the Verbal Behavior of a Linguistically Diverse Speaker with Autism
Language strength in multilingual kids with autism moves daily—test each language briefly and follow the child’s lead.
01Research in Context
What this study did
One team watched a young learners boy with autism speak English, Telugu, and Tamil.
They used the Verbal Operant Experimental (VOX) test five times in each language.
Each test took 10 minutes and checked how well he asked for items, named pictures, and filled in blanks.
What they found
The child’s strongest language changed across sessions.
Sometimes English was on top, other days Telugu or Tamil led.
The order was never the same twice, showing his verbal skills shift like a moving ladder.
How this fits with other research
Kim et al. (2023) saw steady English gains in Korean-English kids without autism.
The two studies look opposite, but the gap is the diagnosis: neurotypical kids build one language, autistic kids juggle many.
Constable et al. (2024) also used short probes for kids with autism, yet they tracked eye quirks while this paper tracked words.
Both show quick tools can catch hidden skills in autistic children.
Why it matters
If you serve a multilingual child with autism, let them pick the session language and run a 10-minute VOX probe in each tongue. Watch for daily shifts and teach in the strongest one that day.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
For speakers belonging to multiple verbal communities, functional analyses of verbal behavior allow for dynamic control over response topography. The simple practice of allowing the speaker the freedom to select the language of instruction minimizes cultural bias and hegemony. We extended the research on functional analyses of verbal behavior to include a speaker of multiple languages in a quasi-experimental case study. We employed verbal operant experimental (VOX) analyses as a repeated measure of language acquisition with a linguistically diverse, 7-year-old Indian boy with autism. The VOX analyses were conducted as part of the child’s early intensive behavioral intervention, and we observed the impact of an immersive foreign language experience on his verbal repertoire with follow-up VOX analyses conducted in three topographically distinct languages: English, Telugu, and Tamil. The results show a dynamic hierarchy of strength between the three languages, with overarching patterns across the three assessments. The implications for using VOX analyses to assess the functional language skills of multilingual speakers with autism are discussed, and areas of future research are highlighted.
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 2024 · doi:10.1007/s40616-023-00196-x