Children with autism spectrum disorder: teaching conversation involving feelings about events.
Tack on a short script while you teach emotion tacts and kids with autism will start feeling-talk on their own.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four kids with autism, joined the study. Each child could already ask for things but rarely talked about feelings.
The team used an ABAB design. In baseline they watched short clips of everyday events. In training they learned to name the feeling in the clip and start a short scripted chat: "He feels sad. Why do you think he is sad?"
What they found
Training doubled the number of times the kids started feeling-talk. The gains showed up right away and returned when training stopped and came back.
Kids also used the skill in new places. One boy asked a cafeteria worker, "Are you tired today?" even though training only happened in the therapy room.
How this fits with other research
McHugh et al. (2011) taught emotion tacts with video clips but did not add conversation scripts. Deserno et al. (2017) kept the video idea and added scripted starters, so the skill now helps real chats, not just labels.
Hewett et al. (2024) found that tact training alone did not always grow into back-and-forth talk. Their fix was extra multiple-exemplar drills. Deserno et al. (2017) shows you can skip that step if you weave the script right into the first lessons.
Naresh et al. (2020) flooded preschoolers with 100 mand chances a day and saw extra tacts pop up. Deserno et al. (2017) used fewer trials but aimed them at feelings, proving you can broaden verbal variety without a full-day immersion.
Why it matters
You can teach feeling words and conversation openers in the same short lesson. No extra phases, no long immersion. Try five clips, five scripts, five practice runs. Watch for the child to use the opener in new rooms or with new people. If it does not happen, add more places and partners before adding new drills.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Two procedures were developed to teach individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders labels (tacts) for various private events (emotions): Study 1 attempted to distinguish them from pure tacts and mands (requests); and Study 2 attempted to train initiating a conversation with grammatically correct subject-verb-comment construction. METHODS: A multiple treatment reversal design was used in both studies, followed by a probe to see if the tacts were used across novel settings. RESULTS: The children were prompted to initiate a series of language exchanges, which resulted in an increased ability to participate in conversations about private events. CONCLUSIONS: Together, the results of both studies suggest that, by providing an effective and reinforcing means of teaching both the function and the form of these tacts, conversations can be successfully initiated by children with ASD.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2017 · doi:10.1111/jir.12339