Increasing the vocalizations of individuals with autism during intervention with a speech-generating device.

Abstract in brief

• The study focused on teaching individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to produce vocalizations using a speech-generating device (SGD), showing that three out of four participants began emitting target words after specific instructional methods like prompts and reinforcement.
• Two participants achieved mastery with a combination of reinforcer delays and differential reinforcement, while one benefited from fading an echoic model and prompt delay, leading to increased vocalizations even without the SGD.
• The results indicate that incorporating vocal instruction into SGD-based interventions can successfully increase vocal outputs for some individuals with ASD, although one participant only vocalized when explicitly prompted.]