Replacing the echolalia of children with autism with functional use of verbal labeling

We evaluated the direct and generalized effects of cues-pause-point language training procedures on immediate echolalia and correct responding in two children with autism. The overall goal was to teach the children to remain quiet before, during, and briefly after the presentation of questions and then to verbalize on the basis of the cues (pictures) whose labels represented the correct responses. A multiple baseline design across question/response pairs demonstrated that echolalia was rapidly replaced by correct responding on the trained stimuli and there were clear improvements in one child's responding to untrained stimuli. These results replicate and extend previous research with adults with mental retardation and autism which demonstrated that cues-pause-point procedures can be effective in teaching individuals displaying echolalia to use their verbal labeling repertoires functionally.