"Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often have difficulty with social communication (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). The tact is often a vital component of many social interactions (Marchese, Carr, LeBlanc, Rosati, & Conroy, 2012); thus, teaching this skill to children with ASD is an important prerequisite skill for many social and academic skills. To date, vocal-verbal tacts have been taught using an in vivo verbal prompt via discrete trial instruction. The current study compared two prompting procedures, in vivo verbal models and video model prompts to determine their effect on tact acquisition and problematic behaviors using a parallel treatments design. Three pre-school aged children with a diagnosis of ASD who received 30 hours of applied behavior analysis therapy per week participated in the study. Results of the study indicate that video model prompts are effective in teaching young children with ASD to tact, however the extent to which one prompt led to quicker acquisition of the target stimuli varied across and within participants. Implications for clinicians are summarized, and potential areas for future research are discussed."--Page ii.
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