The communicative function of question production in autistic children.
Repetitive questions are conversation starters, not stims — respond with prompts to continue talking.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four autistic preschoolers kept asking the same questions over and over.
The team changed how adults answered. Sometimes they gave full answers. Sometimes they gave short answers. Sometimes they asked a question back.
They watched if the kids kept the conversation going after each type of response.
What they found
When adults gave short answers, kids asked more questions. When adults gave full answers, kids stopped talking.
But when adults asked a question back, kids stayed in the conversation.
The study showed that repetitive questions were not just stims. They were the kids' way of saying 'talk to me.'
How this fits with other research
Al-Jawahiri et al. (2019) found that kids with better communication skills do best after FCT. This 1982 study explains why. Teaching kids to use questions as conversation starters builds those skills first.
Smith et al. (2010) extended this work by teaching kids when to talk, not just how. They used natural cues like 'mom is busy' instead of adult questions.
Raslear et al. (1992) conceptually replicated the same goal but used trained peers instead of adults. Both studies show the same pattern: give the child a social partner who responds in ways that keep the exchange going.
Why it matters
When a child with autism asks the same question ten times, treat it as a conversation opener. Give a short answer then immediately ask a related question. This turns repetitive behavior into real back-and-forth talk.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Six children diagnosed as autistic and who also were reported to be using questions inappropriately in their conversations with adults were each placed in a conversational context in which the adult responses to their questions were systematically varied. The dependent variable was the occurrence and amount of appropriate conversational continuation associated with each type of adult response. Differential listener response did affect the occurrence of conversational continuation and to a lesser degree the amount of continuation. These data were interpreted to support the hypothesis that repetitive questioning in this population serves the communicative function of conversation initiation. Furthermore, it appears that the autistic conversants lack the conversational management skills to maintain the conversation following the listener's answer to the question.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 1982 · doi:10.1007/BF01531674