LONG‐TERM FOLLOW‐UP OF ECHOLALIA AND QUESTION ANSWERING

A long‐term follow‐up of echolalia and correct question answering was conducted for 6 subjects from three previously published studies. The follow‐up periods ranged from 26 to 57 months. In a training site follow‐up, subjects were exposed to baseline/posttraining conditions in which the original trainer and/or a novel person(s) presented trained and untrained questions. Four subjects displayed echolalia below baseline levels, and another did so in some assessments. Overall, echolalia was lower than in baseline in 80.6% of the follow‐ups. Five subjects displayed correct responding above baseline levels. No clear differences were noted in correct responding or echolalia between the trainer and novel‐person presentations or between trained and untrained questions. In a follow‐up in a natural environment conducted by a novel person, lower than baseline levels of echolalia were displayed by 3 subjects; 2 subjects displayed lower than baseline levels in some assessments. Two subjects consistently displayed correct responding above baseline, and 3 did so occasionally. Issues related to the study of maintenance are discussed. 1990 Society for the Experimental Analysis of Behavior