Tact (psychology) - Tact Training

Tact Training

Often individuals with autism, developmental disabilities, or language delays have difficulty acquiring novel tacts. Many researchers in the field of verbal behavior and developmental disabilities have examined more intensive training procedures in order to teach tacts to these individuals. Specific types of prompts can be used in order to make a tact response more likely. For example, asking the student the question "what is this?" (this would be an example of an impure tact) has been used to prompt a correct tact response (this prompt can be faded until the learner can emit a pure tact). Echoic prompts (teacher repeats the correct answer which the learner must echo) have also been used to train tact responses. Kodak and Clements (2009) found that echoic training sessions before tact training was more effective at increasing independent tact responses.

Skinner (1957) suggested that verbal operants were functionally independent, meaning that after teaching one verbal operant the individual may not be able to emit the topographically same response under different stimulus conditions. For example, a child may be able to request water, but may not be able to tact water. Researchers are currently examining procedures that may facilitate the generalization across verbal operants. Some studies have indicated for example, that after teaching a child to mand for items, they could then tact them as well without direct instruction. See the following studies for support for the emergence of tact responses without direct instruction (Egan & Barnes-Holmes, 2009; Greer, Chavez-Brown, & Rivera-Valdes, 2005; Nuzzolo-Gomez & Greer, 2005; Petursdottir, Carr, & Michael, 2005) These teaching procedures are especially important for individuals with autism and developmental disabilities because the learner can gain some additional skills without direct instruction time.