Teaching Listener Selection to Children With Autism: Emphasizing the Role of Joint Control

ABSTRACT Teaching listener selection responses to students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) through auditory‐visual conditional discrimination (AVCD) tasks is both essential and challenging in early intensive behavioral intervention (EIBI) programs. We evaluated the efficacy of two instructional approaches—conditional discrimination‐based instruction (CDB) and joint control‐based instruction (JCB)—using an adaptive alternative treatment design with six Chinese‐speaking students with ASD. Results consistently showed that JCB was more effective than CDB. Our findings support the role of joint control as a form of verbal mediation in AVCD tasks and highlight the multiply controlled nature of intraverbal behavior. The findings provide valuable insights for educators aiming to enhance language intervention strategies.