Evaluation of an Instructional Sequence to Promote the Emergence of Convergent Intraverbals in Children with Autism

Skinner (1957) defined intraverbal as a type of verbal behavior in which the response form has no point-to-point correspondence with its verbal stimulus and is followed by generalized conditioned reinforcement. Verbal behavior can be influenced by multiple controlling variables, with convergent and divergent control being two distinct types of this influence. In convergent intraverbals, multiple components of antecedent verbal stimuli control a specific verbal response of the speaker. An example of an intraverbal response under convergent control may be "banana" when asked, "What is a fruit that is yellow?" De Souza et al. (2019) evaluated the effects of teaching prerequisite skills proposed by Sundberg and Sundberg (2011) on the emergence of convergent intraverbals in children with autism. The current study sought to extend De Souza et al. study by further investigating a modified sequence necessary for the emergence of convergent intraverbals in young children with autism. We used a non-concurrent multiple-probe design across participants to evaluate the effects of simple tact teaching and listener compound discrimination teaching on the emergence of convergent intraverbals. The results showed that the two teaching procedures were effective in facilitating the emergence of convergent intraverbals in three children diagnosed with autism. We also observed an increase in the levels of correct responses on other prerequisite skills assessed.