A Pilot Study for Acquisition of Tact of Private Event in a Child with Autism: "It was fun!" or "It was boring."
SAKAMOTO Maki & MOCHIZUKI Akira
last update: 20151223
A Pilot Study for Acquisition of Tact of Private Event in a Child with Autism: "It was fun!" or "It was boring."
SAKAMOTO Maki & MOCHIZUKI Akira
Abstract:
This study was conducted to examine the acquisition program for the "tact" (report) of private event
("It was fun!" or "It was boring.") in a child with autism when he was asked question "How was the
playing?" after the play activity. We examined the program in which two public events, "public
accompaniment" and "collateral responses" (Skinner, 1957) were used as indices of differential
reinforcement for the subject's private-event tact. The intervention had three phases as follows;
Instructor's tact modeling contingent on the subject's collateral responses (smiling, laughing, etc.) and
let him imitate the tact, providing choice cards which presented the words of the private events, and
fading the choice cards. Generalization across playing objects and activities were assessed after
intervention. Results showed that the participant obtained correct tacting responses in the
intervention by the program and also expressed appropriate tact in the untrained play activities. We
discussed the meaning of the use of public events for teaching the private-event tact, and the
importance of the acquisition of the sentence "It was boring" in a context of the enhancement of QOL
for the person with disabilities.
Keywords: child with autism, private event, tact, QOL (quality of life)
REV: 20151223