Emergence of auditory–visual discrimination and tacts through exclusionary responding

Mandel et al. (2022) worked with three children with autism. They taught tacts for only two of three pictures. Then they tested if the kids could name and point to the third picture by exclusion.

Each trial showed one known picture and one brand-new picture. The kids had to pick or name the new one. No extra teaching happened.

All three kids quickly picked and named the untaught picture. The skill popped up after very little direct training.

The children kept the new tact and selection even weeks later.

The result lines up with Meier et al. (2012) and Lancioni et al. (2009). Those teams also saw untrained tacts appear after minimal teaching, just through mand training instead of exclusion.

Dass et al. (2018) used the same discrete-trial package to teach smell names. They added a new sense—olfactory—showing the package travels across modalities.

Ribeiro et al. (2020) looks like a clash. They found re-teaching a tact to an old picture took longer. The difference is they reused pictures the kids already named. Mandel used brand-new pictures, so exclusion could work.

You can save hours of drill. Teach two items, then probe the third through exclusion trials. If the child passes, move on. This keeps sessions fast and kids engaged. Build a few exclusion probes into your tact programs this week and watch free skills emerge.