Brief report: teaching situation-based emotions to children with autistic spectrum disorder.

McHugh et al. (2011) worked with three boys with autism. The boys were six to eight years old.

The team made short video clips. Each clip showed a child in a clear emotion scene. Kids watched clips then named the feeling. They got praise and stickers for right answers.

Training used many examples. This is called multiple-exemplar instruction. Sessions ran a few minutes each day.

All three boys learned to name the trained feelings. They said words like happy, sad, mad, and scared.

When brand-new clips came, the boys still named the feelings right. The skill moved to new stories without extra teaching.

Deserno et al. (2017) copied the idea and added one step. After kids named the feeling, they also learned to start a talk about it. Both studies show the same core: short video tact training works for kids with ASD.

Abadir et al. (2021) and Groom-Sheddler et al. (2025) used the same video method to teach safety skills. One taught saying “no” to strangers. The other taught poison safety. Their results match McHugh et al. (2011): short clips plus a few real drills create strong, new skills.

Hewett et al. (2024) looked at a different verbal skill. They found that tact training alone did not always spark full intraverbal answers. When that happened, they added more exemplars. McHugh et al. (2011) already used many exemplars from the start, so generalization showed up right away.

You can teach feelings fast. Pick short, clear videos. Show many examples. Praise correct labels. The child will likely name feelings in new shows, books, or real life. Try five clips this week and track generalization.