Ep. 37- ABA in One Take- Teaching tacting to early intervention kiddos

Hey there Behaviorists!

We switch gears from lag schedules and social skills to a just as common situation... Tacting!

Breaking from lag schedules, this week ends with an analysis of different tacting procedures and how each can lead into generalization and maintenance for the child. Specifically, these authors looked at the difference between teaching tacting with and without a verbal stimulus paired with the nonverbal antecedent. The phrase “What is this?” is common in tacting but may lead to adverse outcomes such as faulty stimulus control or a lack of generalization. Therefore, these authors sought to compare tacting methods with and without the question, while simultaneously doing extensive testing on naturalistic generalization and maintenance, in order to determine if either method, or DTT as a whole was able to generalize to the natural environment. This podcast will be a great listen for all my early intervention folks out there who are constantly teaching tacting, manding, and intraverbals. I know that I am constantly teaching those skills, and to dive into an article that not only dives into the procedures for those skills but answers the generalization question was quite refreshing!

Citation

LaLonde, K. B., Dueñas, A. D., Neil, N., Wawrzonek, A., & Plavnick, J. B. (2020). An evaluation of two tact-training procedures on acquired tacts and tacting during play. Analysis Verbal Behavior, 36(2), 180–192. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40616-020-00131-4