Teaching spontaneous responses to young children with autism.
Five-minute discrete-trial bursts can teach toddlers with autism to say polite words on their own, and the skill spreads to new people and places.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team used short, table-top drills to teach two preschoolers with autism to say polite phrases without being asked.
Each child got clear prompts, praise for right answers, and quick help after mistakes.
The study checked if the kids would still say things like “bless you” in new rooms and with new people.
What they found
Both children learned the phrases after only a few short sessions.
The words showed up later on the playground and with grandma, even though no one reminded them.
How this fits with other research
Gray (2024) ran almost the same drill and got the same good results, so the method is holding up 17 years later.
Wójcik et al. (2021) added audio scripts and play breaks to the same DTT bones; kids asked for missing toys and kept the skill for three months.
Jones et al. (2014) swapped live drills for short peer videos and still got generalization, proving the goal matters more than the tool.
Why it matters
You can grow polite, useful language in tiny time slots. Run five-minute trials at the table, use any prompt that works, then test the words with new faces and places. If the child can say it once, plan for generalization right away—don’t wait.
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Join Free →Pick one social phrase, run five discrete trials before snack, then ask a new staff member to sneeze later and see if the child says “bless you” without help.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Using a multiple probe design across responses, we demonstrated the effectiveness of intensive intervention in establishing spontaneous verbal responses to 2 3-year-old children with autism with generalization to novel settings involving novel persons. Intervention involved discrete-trial instruction (i.e., repeated instructional opportunities presented in close proximity to high rates of reinforcement), specific prompts, and error correction. Spontaneous responses were defined as specific verbal utterances (e.g., the child says "bless you") following discriminative stimuli that did not involve explicit vocal directives (e.g., adult sneeze). The development of effective interventions to address the social-communicative needs of very young children with autism is discussed.
Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2007 · doi:10.1901/jaba.2007.40-565