ABSTRACT

This study examined the effects of a tact-to-mand transfer-based intervention package on independent manding in a 5-year-old boy identified as a special education student with characteristics of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Using a multiple-probe design across settings, the package was introduced sequentially in three daily living settings—the kitchen, living room, and bedroom—through baseline, tact training, tact-to-mand transfer, mand training, maintenance, and generalization phases. During mand training, maintenance, and generalization, verbal question prompts (e.g., “What do you want?”) and direct presentation of target items were removed, and only vocal requests emitted within 5 s under motivating operation conditions were scored as independent mands. Independent manding increased in all three settings, was maintained after intervention, and showed partial generalization to novel stimuli. The findings suggest that this package can promote independent manding in daily living settings, and the study is meaningful in distinguishing question-evoked responses from spontaneous requests controlled by motivating operations.

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