The emergence of untrained mands and tacts in children with autism.

Four preschoolers with autism learned to name four toy construction pieces. The team taught each child either to mand for the piece or to tact it. They used a multiple-baseline design across the four items.

Sessions were short and play-based. Adults gave the item only if the child asked correctly, or labeled it when the adult held it up. No other operant was directly taught.

Three of the four kids immediately used the new word the other way. If you taught the mand, the tact popped out. If you taught the tact, the mand popped out. No extra teaching was needed.

The fourth child needed a few more trials, but the skill still emerged. The authors call this ‘verbal operant interdependence’—teach one form, get the partner for free.

Lancioni et al. (2009) saw the same mand-to-tact jump, but only when they changed the antecedent prompt. The 2012 study shows the jump can happen with standard tact trials—no tweak required. The difference is small: 2009 used adjectives, 2012 used object names.

Hu et al. (2023) repeated the effect in Mandarin-speaking kids learning English. Their mands in a second language produced untaught English tacts, proving the pattern holds across languages.

Gilliam et al. (2013) flipped the direction: tact training created mands only for highly preferred items. Together these papers say emergence is real, but preference can gate the tact-to-mand path.

Before you run extra programs, probe the untrained operant. If a child can now ask for ‘wheel’, see if he also labels ‘wheel’ when he sees one. You might be done. This single probe can save hours of direct teaching and keep therapy fun and fast.