Teaching Children With Autism To Mand For Information
Natasha Pieron
Co-Presenters: Individual Presentation
College: College of Education
Major: Applied Behavior Analysis
Faculty Research Mentor: Daphna El Roy
Abstract:
Neurotypical children tend to ask for information in various ways, while some neurodivergent children may lack the skill to ask questions because their motivation to ask is not present (Endicott et al., 2007). Contriving ways to provoke an interest for a child to request (mand) is a way to boost motivation to learn to ask for something. An example is if a child is playing with a toy they really enjoy, and a piece of the toy is missing, they can be taught to ask for where the piece is located, instead of exhibiting frustration. A literature review was conducted of articles featuring various interventions to teach children with autism to request information. An anonymous Google Forms survey was sent to professionals at an early intervention Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) center for children with autism. Twelve professionals participated in the survey. Procedural questions asked if staff had implemented a specific intervention to teach children with autism to mand for information based on the above-mentioned research articles, and then participants rated the effectiveness of interventions they had conducted on a Likert scale of 1-4. Most reported that they had taught a child to request “how,” given an instruction to complete a task, such as “let’s make a volcano.” The intervention was rated to be effective by 75% of the professionals. None of the interventions were ranked in the “very effective” category. No interventions were rated ineffective by any of the participants.