Comparison of mastery criteria applied to individual targets and stimulus sets on acquisition of tacts, intraverbals, and listener responses

Cordeiro’s team asked a simple question: should we master one picture at a time or the whole set?

They taught three skills—tacts, intraverbals, listener responses—to six kids with autism.

Each child got both rules in rapid-turn lessons: pass one picture three times in a row, or pass every picture in the set three times.

Target-level mastery won. Kids reached mastery in about half the sessions for tacts and listener responses.

Maintenance a week later was the same for both rules, but the fast track sometimes fooled staff—kids gave “I know it” errors on brand-new pictures.

Vladescu et al. (2021) already showed smaller sets of 3-6 pictures beat big sets of 12. Cordeiro goes further: even with the same set size, checking off single targets is faster than checking off the whole group.

Wunderlich et al. (2017) found little difference between showing pictures one-by-one or all at once. Add Cordeiro and the picture is clear—how you score mastery matters more than how you flash the cards.

Grow et al. (2017) tucked extra play cues into tact trials and got free play skills. Cordeiro’s shortcut gives you that extra time back to slot in such bonuses.

If you run table-top DTT, switch to target-level mastery: three correct in a row for one picture before you add the next. You can cut tact programs from 20 sessions to 10. Just probe new pictures right after mastery to catch kids who over-select.