Using Errorless Teaching to Teach Generalized Manding for Information Using “How?”

Abstract

reinforcing activities were presented to and interrupted for two participants with autism. An errorless teaching procedure was then introduced with two similar activities prompting the participants to request information saying "How?" in order to resume the activity. The dependent variable included both the cumulative number of times "How?" occurred and number of times he used the acquired information to access his reinforcer. Training was conducted across five clinicians to program for and determine generalization across both activities and people. Results suggest that one participant's manding for information generalized across activities and clinicians, although his utilizing the acquired information was not as apparent for 4 out of the 5 activities. The second participant's behavior suggested his manding to have generalized to 3 out of 5 activities but limited (2 out of 5) use of acquired information. A maintenance trial conducted three weeks after the study's conclusion indicated that the target behaviors were maintained.