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Background: Previous research has demonstrated that children with autism often have difficulty using and understanding non-literal language (e.g., irony, sarcasm, deception, humor, and metaphors). Irony and sarcasm may be especially difficult for children with autism because the meaning of an utterance is the opposite of what is stated. The current study evaluated the effectiveness of a training package, including rules and in vivo multiple exemplar training, to teach three children with autism to detect and respond appropriately to sarcastic statements. Conclusion: The training package was effective and generalization was obtained across novel exemplars, settings, and people.

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Background: Human growth is dependent upon social interactions, notably essential during the middle childhood years (ages 5-10). Although some children develop differently than others, all experience the same types of mental processes through which, due to a variety of factors, they may become typically achieving, or stunted in their development. Language is a key component of being human. Communication occurs through verbal and nonverbal behavior. People are able to understand what others are trying to encode through multiple processes of interpretation. Humans learn to use language through interaction with others, but are born with the ability to acquire language. Children with Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) acquire language the same way as typically developing children however, they use a different system of communication.

Conclusion: This paper will describe the difficulties in language usage in social situations faced by children with Autism, and will discuss how cognitive development and language acquisition shape the ways in which social interaction differs in typically developing children as compared to children with Autism in middle childhood. It will also illustrate multiple factors that may contribute to the deficiencies noted in ASD and what is being done to address those issues.

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We examined a procedure consisting of a preference assessment, prompting, contrived conditioned establishing operations, and consequences for correct and incorrect responses for teaching children with autism to mand ‘‘which?’’ We used a modified multiple baseline design across 3 participants. All the children learned to mand ‘‘which?’’ Generalization occurred to the natural environment, to a novel activity, and to a novel container; the results were maintained over time.

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This study used a nonconcurrent multiple baseline across participants design to evaluate the use of rules, role-play, and feedback for teaching 3 children with autism spectrum disorder to tell socially appropriate lies when (a) presented with an undesired gift and (b) someone’s appearance changed in an undesired way. The intervention was effective in teaching use of socially appropriate lies, and generalization to untrained people and gifts or appearances was observed.
 

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Background: Researchers have shown that children with autism have difficulty with non-literal language, such as irony, sarcasm, deception, humor, and metaphors. To date, few studies have attempted to remediate these deficits, and no studies of which we are aware have attempted to teach children with autism to understand metaphors. Metaphorical reasoning consists of complex verbal behavior, involving relations of coordination, hierarchy, and distinction, at a minimum. The purpose of the current study was to evaluate multiple exemplar training for teaching children with autism to attend to relevant features of the context in which a metaphor is used and to engage in the required relational responding in order to respond correctly to metaphorical questions. Participants included three children, ages 5–7.

Conclusion: Results suggest that multiple exemplar training is effective for teaching children with autism to understand metaphors. Furthermore, generalization to untrained metaphors was found for all participants.