An Evaluation of Mand and Tact Assessment Procedures

Abstract

There are many empirically validated interventions to establish vocal mands and tacts for children (e.g., Miguel, Carr, & Michael, 2002; Wallace, Iwata, & Hanley, 2006); however, the method for determining the most appropriate intervention for each individual is unclear. An assessment is one way to identify an effective intervention for a given individual. The purpose of the current study was to replicate and extend Bourret, Vollmer, & Rapp (2004) who evaluated an assessment to inform effective mand interventions for three boys with vocal mand deficits. In the first study, we replicated the full mand assessment as described by Bourret et al. and compared the full assessment to a brief mand assessment with similar procedures. Results showed that the full mand assessment and the brief mand assessment identified similar patterns of responding for all three participants. In addition, there was increased efficiency of the brief mand assessment when compared to the full mand assessment. In the second study, we extended the brief assessment from the mand to the tact to evaluate the identification of training strategies for the tact. Results of the brief tact assessment identified similar patterns of responding to the brief mand assessment for two of the three participants and a dissimilar outcome for one participant, suggesting that vocal verbal deficits may differ across verbal operants.