Abstract
Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty developing complex verbal behavior, including question-asking. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a procedure to teach two children with ASD to ask “Why?” Typically, Why-questions are followed by causal information that describes the reason an event occurs. For this reason, we established causal information as a reinforcer by denying access to items without providing a reason. Participants were prompted to ask “Why?” and were provided information that led to access of preferred items. To ensure that “Why?” only occurred when information was valuable, we included a condition where access to items was restricted, but a reason for denied access was provided. Both participants learned to ask “Why?” when information was needed and refrained from asking “Why?” when information was not needed. Results from this study suggest that this procedure was successful in teaching children with ASD to ask “Why?”