Research on stimulus–stimulus pairing to induce novel vocalizations in nonverbal children has typically employed response‐independent pairing (RIP) procedures to condition speech sounds as reinforcers. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effects of a response‐contingent pairing (RCP) procedure on the vocalizations of three nonverbal boys diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. During RCP, adult‐delivered sounds that were either paired with a preferred item (target sounds) or not (nontarget sounds) were presented contingent on a button‐press response. In Experiment 1, RCP was compared with an RIP procedure, in which the timing of sound presentations was yoked to the preceding RCP session. RCP produced a greater effect on all participants' target vocalizations than RIP. Experiment 2 demonstrated the effects of differential reinforcement of the vocalizations induced in Experiment 1. The results suggest that RCP may develop vocalizations more reliably than RIP procedures.