Abstract
In 2 autistic children attending a school for mentally retarded children, there were no signs of mand using words, as such. As a step toward learning such verbal behavior when they wanted something instead of their already acquired "give me" sign, we attempted to form in them this mand using speech. The training was arranged to use manding opportunities within the context of the daily school routine in order to instill the mand. Parallel with this, individual guidance was given in imitative training from action to utterance (5 vowels). As a result, in the training sessions, over twice the pre-training expression of the mand by both children was seen in their monosyllabic utterances. The frequency of this type of mand using speech was low, but it increased with utterances in response to the teacher's verbal prompting or by oral imitation. Based on these results, methods to instill such mand using speech and achieving greater skill therein through use of the ordinary manding opportunities within a school for the mentally retarded, as well as ways to provide individual instruction within the actual school setting, were discussed.
