ABSTRACT
Manding for information is a critical skill implicated in social, academic, and vocational success. It may be challenging to teach individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to mand for information as information may not function as a reinforcer. In this study, experimenters evaluated the effects of three distinct establishing operations (EO) interspersed with a control condition in which the EO for information was absent (i.e., there was an abolishing operation (AO) for information), and a progressive echoic prompt delay to teach three children with ASD to mand for information in the form of “Why?”. All three participants acquired the “why” mand for information (MFI) under all three EOs. Generalization of the “why” MFI across EOs within the study was observed for one participant.