Emergent control for play responses following instructive feedback for children with autism spectrum disorder
Brief play comments during tact training can spark new toy actions in kids with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Morton et al. (2023) added short play comments while teaching tacts to kids with autism.
They ran discrete-trial lessons. While the child labeled a picture, the teacher slipped in extra info like "Cars go vroom."
No one directly taught play actions. The team just watched to see if the kids later played with the toys in new ways.
What they found
All the children started using the toys in the mentioned ways without any direct training.
The brief comments during tact trials were enough to spark new play responses.
How this fits with other research
Ferguson et al. (2020) and Campbell et al. (2024) showed that instructive feedback also helps kids pick up extra tacts while watching peers over telehealth.
Frampton et al. (2019) used matrix training instead of comments and still saw emergent color-shape tacts. The new study shows the same spill-over works for play skills.
Together, the papers say: slip extra info into any tact lesson and kids with autism often learn more than you directly teach.
Why it matters
You can grow play skills without adding lessons or time. While you run regular tact trials, toss in quick comments about what the items can do. The child may later act out those actions on their own. This keeps sessions efficient and builds richer play repertoires.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →During tact trials, add one short sentence about what the item does, then watch for new play in free time.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractPlay provides children learning opportunities in the natural environment to acquire communication skills. While working to establish skills that may lead to additional leisure and social opportunities of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), procedures need to be both effective and efficient. One way to increase efficiency of teaching is through the use of instructive feedback (IF). Therefore, the purpose of the current study is to systematically replicate and extend previous research by examining if play behaviors emerge when using IF to teach conceptually related primary (i.e., tacts) and secondary targets (i.e., play skills). The results of the present study extend previous research by demonstrating the effectiveness of teaching tacts to individuals with ASD, and that using IF during tact training can help promote the acquisition of play skills.
Behavioral Interventions, 2023 · doi:10.1002/bin.1954