Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a developmental disorder that limits one’s ability to engage in a mutual, social interaction. Joint attention, imitation and social involvement are social abilities together with other cognitive functions that determine speechdevelopment. These abilities can be less developed in children with ASD compared to typically developing children and therefore children with ASD may have difficulties acquiring various social skills. Applied behaviour analysis (ABA) is a science which can be used to train language skills, for instance, the ability to request (mand) something or to label (tact) something. The purpose of this study was to investigate if the ability to mand and tact increased after intensive training. Three children participated in this study, where the amount of mands and tacts were calculated before training and 7–9 weeks after training had begun. The results confirmed that communicative initiatives increased among all participants. It is not possible to exclude that other factors may have affected the outcome, such as the learning effect of the experimenters or the maturation of the children during the course of this study. The results have not been significantly tested and therefore cannot be generalized to the population. More research is needed within the area. / Autismspektrumtillstånd (AST) är en funktionsnedsättning som begränsar bland annat förmågan till ömsesidig social interaktion. Delad uppmärksamhet, imitation och socialt engagemang är sociala förmågor som tillsammans med andra kognitiva förmågor ligger till grund för språkutvecklingen. Dessa förmågor kan vara mindre utvecklade hos barn med AST jämfört med typiskt utvecklade barn. Barn med AST kan således uppvisa svårigheter med att tillägna sig vissa språkliga förmågor. Tillämpad Beteendeanalys (TBA) är en vetenskap som kan användas för att träna språkliga färdigheter, bland annat förmågan att begära något (mand) och förmågan att benämna något (tact). Studiens syfte var att genom observation undersöka ifall förmågan att begära och benämna ökar efter intensiv beteendeanalytisk träning. Tre barn deltog i studien där antalet begära- och benämnatillfällen räknades innan påbörjad träning samt 7–9 veckor efter påbörjad träning. Resultatet visade att antal kommunikativa initiativ ökade hos samtliga deltagare. Det går inte att utesluta att andra faktorer kan ha påverkat resultatet, såsom inlärningseffekt hos testledarna eller mognad hos barnen under studiens gång. Resultaten har inte signifikansprövats och kan därmed ej generaliseras till populationsnivå. Mer forskning behövs inom området.

Everyone, including children with developmental disabilities, encounters stimuli they find aversive every day (e.g., the sound of a classmate tapping their pencil). These aversive stimuli may not be problematic for typically developing individuals, because they learn to behave in ways that allow them to escape or avoid this aversive stimulation. They could, for example, mand (i.e., request) for something to be changed in the environment (e.g., ask their classmates to stop tapping their pencils). A child with developmental disabilities, however, may not have the communication skills necessary to request the termination of aversive stimuli, which may result in frequent exposure to aversive situations. For these children, it may be useful to acquire a general mand (e.g., saying, "No, thank you") which could be used to avoid or terminate a variety of aversive stimuli. Previous researchers teaching mands for negative reinforcement have focused on replacing problem behavior maintained by escape from task demands. The current study extended the literature on teaching mands for negative reinforcement by teaching children with developmental disabilities to mand for escape from a variety of nonpreferred stimuli, while assessing generalization to untrained stimuli and settings. Participants were two school-aged boys with autism who engaged in problem behavior when they encountered nonpreferred stimuli, and did not use an appropriate mand for negative reinforcement. First, we employed a non-preferred stimulus assessment to identify stimuli for subsequent use in mand training. Next, we conducted mand training sequentially across nonpreferred stimuli until sufficient exemplars were trained for generalization to untrained stimuli to occur. Finally, we conducted probes to assess generalization of the mand response to nontraining contexts outside of the experimental setting. For both participants, training was required across two stimuli before cross-stimulus generalization was observed. Because generalization did not bring the mand to criterion levels with the third stimulus, for either participant, training was introduced to facilitate acquisition. The mand response was acquired with a fourth stimulus in the absence of training. Through the inclusion of appropriate control conditions, we showed that the stimulus control of the mand response was appropriate, occurring almost exclusively in the presence of nonpreferred stimuli. In addition, we showed decreases in problem behavior, for both participants, which corresponded to acquisition of the mand response. We also provided evidence of generalization to nontraining contexts. We discuss limitations of the current study and present suggestions for future research.

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A deficit currently exists in teacher preparation programs for teaching students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) using evidence-based practices, specifically in the area of Applied Behavior Analysis. As communication deficits are a primary characteristic associated with the diagnosis of ASD teaching communication skills is a common educational goal for students with ASD, and this skill needs to be addressed in teacher education. Mand training is one evidence-based practice applied to teach independent requesting skills to students with ASD. In this study, four teachers serving students with characteristics of ASD in the classroom participated in a multiple-probe across-participants study evaluating the extent to which online training videos prepare teachers in mand training procedures for students with ASD. Concurrent with teacher participants, changes in rates of student mands were evaluated for four students receiving instruction in a multiple probe design. Data analysis consisted of visual analysis of graphically displayed results and calculation of effect sizes. Results indicate that the Online Training Videos (OTV) were not effective as a standalone intervention for preparation of teachers to teach mands, however three student participants showed improved student outcomes.