Teaching a foreign language to students with autism via telehealth in inclusive school settings

Zhou et al. (2024) compared two telehealth lessons for kids with autism in regular classrooms. One lesson started with tact training: the child saw a picture and said the Chinese word. The other lesson started with listener training: the therapist said the Chinese word and the child picked the matching picture. Both lessons aimed to create bidirectional intraverbals: the child could both ask and answer questions in Chinese. The team used an alternating-treatments design so each child got both types of lessons on different days.

Both lesson types worked. Kids learned to say and understand Chinese words. Tact-first lessons worked a little better. After these lessons, children produced more bidirectional intraverbals without extra teaching. The gains stayed when teachers used the new words later in class.

Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2022) showed that Spanish instructive feedback during English lessons helped bilingual kids with autism understand Spanish. Zhou et al. (2024) go further: they show telehealth can teach a brand-new language from zero, not just boost an existing one.

Hewett et al. (2024) found that tact training alone often fails to create intraverbals; most kids needed extra multiple-exemplar drills. Zhou et al. (2024) seem to disagree, but the difference is the goal. Kate wanted kids to answer category questions like 'Name a fruit.' Zhou wanted kids to swap short phrases like 'Hello—你好.' Simple phrase swaps emerged after tact training; complex category naming needed more work.

ILee et al. (2022) showed listener training can spark intraverbals. Zhou et al. (2024) confirm this, but add that starting with tacts sparks even more. Together, the papers build a ladder: listener-first works, tact-first works a bit better, and extra drills close any remaining gaps.

You can add foreign-language targets to an existing telehealth slot without extra travel or staff. Start with tact trials: show the picture, have the child say the new word. Once the child can say it, flip to listener trials, then mix quick question-answer games. Five minutes of tact-first work can create both speaking and listening skills in the new language while you keep working on English goals.