Mands for information (MFIs) play an important role in language development and are important for successfully acquiring new information from one's environment. Yet many individuals with autism do not acquire mands for information without direct teaching. Research has demonstrated effective procedures for teaching all "wh" forms, except for "why." This study investigated procedures to teach the MFI "why" under control of the establishing operation and examined the extent to which teaching resulted in generalization. The intervention was effective in establishing the MFI "why" for 3 children with autism, and generalization to novel scenarios occurred for all participants.Keywords Abolishing operations . Establishing operations . Mand for information . Why questions Mands for information (MFIs) are classified as behavior in the form of question asking that is under the control of an establishing operation (EO), the consequence being information related to the EO (Sundberg, Loeb, Hale, & Eigenheer, 2002). This behavior often occurs in the form of "wh" questions, though any topography can serve as an MFI (e.g., "tell me"; Ingvarsson & Hollobaugh, 2010). MFIs play an important role in language development (Chouinard, 2007), and many researchers (e.g., Sundberg et al., 2002) have stressed the importance of investigating effective procedures to teach this skill because MFI repertoires allow individuals to acquire unknown information about the environment. For example, asking "What's that?" may help an individual acquire new tacts (Lechago, Carr, Grow, Love, & Almason, 2010), and asking "How?" may allow an individual to navigate novel problems he or she encounters