A Preliminary Procedure for Teaching Children with Autism to Mand for Social Information

Shillingsburg et al. (2018) worked with two children with autism. The team wanted to see if the kids could learn to ask "Who is that?" when they did not know a person's name.

The adults used an alternating-treatments design. In some trials the child needed the name to get a toy (EO present). In other trials the name was not needed (AO present). This contrast helped the child feel when asking mattered.

Both children quickly started to ask "Who is that?" on their own when the adult's name was the only way to get the item. They stopped asking when the name was useless.

The skill moved to new adults the kids had never met. The children also used the name they just heard to pick the correct item, showing they really learned.

Landa et al. (2020) ran almost the same study with four kids and got the same good results. This direct replication gives you more confidence the procedure works.

Shillingsburg et al. (2019) tried the idea again, but children used speech-generating devices instead of voices. All three non-vocal preschoolers learned to ask "Who?" questions. The 2018 spoken-word study and the 2019 SGD study fit together like puzzle pieces.

Rodriguez et al. (2017) and Wójcik et al. (2021) used the same EO/AO trick to teach kids to ask for help or for missing items. The pattern is clear: alternate trials with and without the need, and new mands grow.

You now have a quick, three-step tool to add social questions to a mand repertoire. First, set up a fun activity that only moves forward if the child knows a name. Second, run EO-present and EO-absent trials side by side so the child feels the difference. Third, rotate new adults so the child practices with fresh faces. The whole package takes one or two sessions and works for vocal or non-vocal learners.