Overcoming an autistic child's failure to acquire a tact repertoire.

A preschooler with autism could ask for items but could not name them. The team wanted to teach the child to tact, or label, 18 common objects.

They first used a verbal prompt, “What is that?” The child echoed the prompt instead of naming the item. The team then removed the verbal cue and used only nonverbal cues, such as holding up the item and waiting. This shift is called stimulus-control transfer.

After the verbal prompt was dropped, the child quickly learned to tact all 18 targets. Labels emerged without extra teaching once the cue changed.

The study showed that the prompt itself had been blocking the tact response.

Lancioni et al. (2009) and Meier et al. (2012) also got tacts to emerge in autistic preschoolers, but they started with mand training instead of removing a prompt. Their results extend this 1994 finding: you can either transfer stimulus control away from a prompt or build tacts from mand training.

Dass et al. (2018) used the same transfer logic to teach children to tact smells. Mandel et al. (2022) showed that tacts can emerge after only two direct teachings when you add exclusion trials. Both papers extend the core idea—reduce direct teaching by tweaking stimulus conditions.

Rojahn et al. (1987) is an earlier cousin. They mixed mand and tact trials to speed up tact learning in typical kids. The 1994 study moves from mixing operants to removing faulty prompts for kids with autism.

If a child echoes your tact prompt instead of labeling, drop the prompt. Hold up the item, wait, and reinforce the first independent name. This simple switch can unlock a full tact repertoire without extra drills. Use brief probe sessions to check for emergent tacts after any prompt change.