Presession attention affects the acquisition of tacts and intraverbals

The team compared two ways to start a teaching session. In one, the child got 15 minutes of adult attention before work. In the other, the child got no attention for 15 minutes.

They used an alternating-treatments design with children with autism. The targets were new tacts (labels) and intraverbals (fill-ins like “You eat with a ___”).

Kids learned the new words faster when adults gave no attention before the lesson. The no-attention condition beat the attention condition for both tacts and intraverbals.

Rojahn et al. (1987) showed that mixing mand trials into tact training also speeds learning. Both studies use the same fast-switch design, but they tweak different levers: 1987 changed the trial type, 2020 changed the presession context.

Lancioni et al. (2009) proved that small antecedent tweaks help tacts emerge after mand training. Cengher et al. (2020) add a new tweak—attention deprivation—instead of prompt changes.

Hu et al. (2023) pushed the idea into foreign-language learning. Together the chain shows: if you want faster tact gains, first try no presession attention, then check for emergent skills, then probe in new languages.

You can shave minutes off each teaching round by simply withholding attention for 15 minutes before tact and intraverbal trials. No extra materials, no new protocols—just schedule independent work or have staff hold back praise until the lesson starts. Try it during your next verbal behavior block and track acquisition rates; if the child learns faster, you just saved therapy hours.