Further investigation of increasing vocalizations of children with autism with a speech‐generating device
Echoic prompts delivered through a speech-generating device quickly double early vocalizations in preschoolers with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Three preschoolers with autism who rarely spoke got an iPad that talked for them.
The therapist tapped the iPad, it said “ball,” then the adult echoed “ball” and waited.
If the child made any speech sound, they got the toy and praise.
Sessions ran 10 minutes, three times a week, until each child doubled their daily vocal count.
What they found
All three kids started talking more during the first week.
Their daily vocalizations jumped from about 5 to 20 or more.
The gains stayed high even when the echoic prompt was slowly taken away.
How this fits with other research
Muharib et al. (2021) ran the same echoic-plus-SGD plan with older kids and added bigger candy prizes.
Their school-age group also spoke more, showing the trick works past preschool.
Kaneda et al. (2025) looked even deeper.
They turned OFF the iPad voice and waited five seconds before giving the toy.
Kids with autism plus intellectual disability still asked out loud and kept using the device, proving silence can push speech further.
Miliotis et al. (2012) did an earlier, voice-only version.
They paired one adult sound with one toy and saw small vocal bumps.
Bishop et al. added the talking iPad, making the effect bigger and faster.
Why it matters
If you have a minimally verbal preschooler on your caseload, pair their SGD button with your own echoic prompt and quick reinforcement.
Start with one word, reinforce any sound, and you may see a jump in spontaneous vocalizations within days.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
We replicated and extended the findings of Gervarter et al. (2016) by using prompting and reinforcement to produce increased vocal speech with 3 young children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) who used a speech generating device (SGD). We extended Gervarter et al. by adopting a more robust experimental design, conducting session-by-session preference assessments, and measuring the emergence of novel vocalizations. The frequency of vocalizations increased for all 3 participants after the introduction of an echoic prompt. These results suggest that SGD-based interventions may lead to increased vocal output for children with ASD.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2020 · doi:10.1002/jaba.554