Acquisition and functional analysis of manding with autistic students

Three autistic students were trained to request a specific object from an adult "supplier" with the sentence, "Give me--" and to deliver that object to another adult, the "director." Subsequently, the degree to which the object offered by the supplier controlled the "Give me--" verbal response was assessed by delivering to the student an object other than the one requested. Despite knowing the names of all objects used in the experiment, students accepted and delivered to the director any object offered by the supplier regardless of its match with the requested object. After training to say "That's not it. Give me--" when nonrequested objects were offered, students responded differentially to requested and nonrequested objects, suggesting control of the "Give me--" response by the requested object, a characteristic of a mand. These results generalized across settings and objects. Results are discussed in terms of the training technique to establish manding and the functional analysis of the resulting verbal behavior.