Effects of exposure to prompts on the acquisition of intraverbals in children with autism spectrum disorder JESSICA C. KAY,APRIL N. KISAMORE,JASON C. VLADESCU,TINA M. SIDENER, KENNETH F. REEVE,CATHERINE TAYLOR-SANTA AND NICOLE A. PANTANO CALDWELL UNIVERSITY The current experiment is a systematic replication of previous studies that evaluated the effi- ciency of echoic and tact prompts on the acquisition of intraverbals (i.e., French-to-English translations) following exposure to each prompt type. We extended these studies by (a) evaluating participants’ language skills on standardized assessments, (b) incorporating descrip- tive praise for correct responding, (c) presenting trials via voice recording, and (d) evaluating teacher preference for each prompt type as a social validity measure. All participants learned at least one set of intraverbals faster with the procedure that was most recently used during teach- ing. These findings suggest that results from previous prompt comparison studies might be a function of previous exposure to prompt types and that it might be possible to manipulate learning histories such that a particular prompt type becomes more efficient. Key words: echoic prompts, intraverbals, learning history, tact prompts Intraverbals are a type of verbal relation in which responses lack point-to-point correspon- dence with the verbal discriminative stimuli that evoke them (Palmer, 2016; Skinner 1957). This means that the responses do not physically match their antecedent stimuli. For example, a child might say, “cookie” when mom asks, “What did you bake with Grandma?” These types of responses are established and maintained by non- specific generalized conditioned reinforcement, such as praise (Skinner, 1957). Intraverbals include a variety of responses such as answering questions (e.g., “What’s your name?”), filling-in the blanks (e.g., “The wheels on the bus go round and ___”), saying the alphabet (e.g., “A, B, __”), singing songs (e.g., “twinkle, twinkle little ___”), word associations (e.g., “socks and ___?”), and translations (e.g., “Maison in English is?”). Although children typically learn intraverbals incidentally (Hart & Risley, 1995); those diag- nosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) might require explicit training to do so (e.g., Allan, Vladescu, Kisamore, Reeve, & Sidener, 2015; DeSouza, Fisher, & Rodriguez, 2019; Dickes & Kodak, 2015; Eikeseth & Smith, 2013; Haggar, Ingvarsson, & Braun, 2018; Ingvarsson & Hollobaugh, 2011; Ingvarsson, Kramer, Carp, Petursdottir, & Macias, 2016; Ingvarsson & Le, 2011; Kisamore, Karsten, & Mann, 2016; Peterson, Rodriguez, & Pawich, 2019; Valentino, Shillingsburg, & Call 2012; Vedora, Meunier, & Mackay, 2009). The acquisi- tion of intraverbals (i.e., answer questions, fill-in the blanks, chain words together) is not only important for the development of a complex ver- bal repertoire (e.g., conversational skills), but it may create additional opportunities for contacting reinforcement through interactions with peers and adults (Ingvarsson, Tiger, Hanley, & Ste- phenson, 2007). Within this literature, there has been particular interest in the evaluation of different stimulus This study is based on a thesis conducted by the first author, under the supervision of the second author, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Arts degree in Applied Behavior Analysis at Caldwell Uni- versity, Caldwell, New Jersey. Address correspondence to: April N. Kisamore who is now at Hunter College, Department of Special Education, 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10065. (e-mail: april. kisamore@hunter.cuny.edu) doi: 10.1002/jaba.606 JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS 2020, 53, 493–507 NUMBER 1(WINTER) © 2019 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 493