Foreign Language Instruction in Chinese‐Speaking Neurotypical and Neurodivergent Children

ABSTRACT This study evaluated a foreign‐language teaching procedure, derived from Skinner's verbal behavior framework within a logographic linguistic community. The primary goal was to test whether a one‐step Chinese‐to‐English (C–E) intraverbal training procedure could produce untaught English tacts, listener responses, and English‐to‐Chinese (E–C) intraverbals. Participants included twelve Chinese‐speaking children (six neurotypical, six neurodivergent). A multiple‐baseline design across two stimulus sets was employed. The simplified C–E intraverbal procedure resulted in robust and rapid acquisition for all participants and led to the reliable emergence of the untaught verbal operants. Furthermore, acquired skills maintained at a 4‐week follow‐up, and social validity ratings from teachers and parents were high. The findings strongly support the broad applicability of verbal‐behavior‐based foreign‐language instruction across diverse learners and different veral communities, including non‐alphabetic, logographic languages.