Acquisition of mands and tacts with concurrent echoic training

Area of Science:

• Behavior analysis
• Developmental psychology
• Speech-language pathology

Background:

• Effective teaching procedures exist for increasing verbal behavior in individuals with developmental disabilities.
• Limited research addresses treatment modifications when children do not acquire communication skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate treatment modifications for a child with autism who did not acquire unprompted mands and tacts.
• To investigate the efficacy of combining echoic training with other procedures.

Main Methods:

• A single-case design was used with a 4-year-old boy diagnosed with autism.
• The participant received mand-only and tact-only training initially.
• Subsequently, echoic training was combined with mand or tact training.

Main Results:

• The participant did not acquire unprompted mands and tacts during initial, separate training phases.
• Combining echoic training with mand or tact training resulted in an increase in unprompted manding and tacting.

Conclusions:

• Treatment modifications, specifically the addition of echoic training, can be effective when initial communication interventions are unsuccessful.
• This combined approach facilitated the acquisition of spontaneous verbal behavior in a child with autism.