Using transfer procedures to teach tacts to a child with autism

Area of Science:

• Behavior Analysis
• Developmental Psychology
• Special Education

Background:

• Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often require specialized instruction to develop language skills, including tacting.
• Tacting, or labeling objects and actions, is a foundational verbal operant crucial for communication.
• Existing transfer procedures for teaching tacts can be time-consuming and require evaluation for efficiency.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the efficacy of a combined transfer procedure for teaching tacts to a child with autism.
• To assess the effectiveness of a brief, 5-minute instructional session incorporating receptive, echoic, and tact transfer steps.
• To determine if this combined procedure leads to the acquisition of new tacts in a child with autism.

Main Methods:

• A single-subject research design (multiple baseline across sets of tacts) was employed.
• A 7-year-old vocal child with autism participated in the study.
• Instruction combined receptive-to-echoic-to-tact and echoic-to-tact transfer procedures within 5-minute sessions.

Main Results:

• The child acquired zero target tacts without the teaching procedure.
• Following the implementation of the 5-minute teaching procedure, the child acquired 30 new tacts.
• Acquisition occurred across three sets of ten tacts over sixty teaching sessions.

Conclusions:

• The combined transfer procedure is an effective method for teaching tacts to children with autism.
• Brief, 5-minute instructional sessions utilizing this combined procedure can lead to significant language gains.
• The findings suggest broad applicability for teaching tacts to diverse learners, including those with and without autism.