Teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to tact olfactory stimuli

Three preschoolers with autism smelled items like coffee, lemon, and mint.

The team ran short discrete trials. They gave echoic prompts, waited 3 s, then showed the right name if needed.

Kids also learned smell categories such as ‘food’ or ‘flower’ through multiple examples.

All three children could name each smell and its group after about 600 trials.

They later matched new smells to the correct group without extra teaching.

Parents reported the kids now talked about smells at home.

Vladescu et al. (2021) also used discrete trials to teach tacts, but with pictures. They saw faster learning when sets held only 3–6 items. Dass kept sets small too, so the quick gains line up.

Gwynette et al. (2020) slipped extra facts into mastered trials and saw new words pop out. Dass did the same by adding category names as secondary targets during smell trials. Both show you can piggy-back new skills on easy tasks.

O’Connor et al. (2020) used equivalence training so kids could link people to emotions without direct teaching. Dass used multiple-exemplar training so kids could link new smells to categories. Both studies got untaught relations, just with different methods.

Smell safety and food refusal are real issues for kids with autism. This study gives you a ready script: echoic prompt, 3-s delay, error correction, and rotate 3–6 exemplars. You can run it at the table, then test with real kitchen spices or school cafeteria scents. Add category names as secondary targets and you may get free generalization. Try it next session—pick two smells the child meets daily and start naming.