Language is a fundamental cornerstone in human life. Without it, a person cannot fully understand the world around them, interact with it properly, or develop in various aspects. Through language, individuals communicate with others in different life situations, express their thoughts, opinions, emotions, and needs. Language also allows human beings to adapt to their environment, connect with peers, learn, and pass on their knowledge and heritage to future generations. For this reason, language is a critical behavior that humans strive to acquire and master.

In our field, we often see parents become alarmed when their child’s language development lags behind peers. Among the important verbal behavior skills identified by B.F. Skinner is tact—a term referring to labeling or naming. In Skinner’s analysis, tact comes from “contact” and refers to the act of labeling things in the environment as a way of socially connecting.

Labeling (tact) is considered the first step in spontaneous social communication. When we name what we see in the environment out loud, we are attempting to socially interact with others, to share what we feel and perceive. Without tacts, there would be no interactive dialogue. Notice that we rarely label things aloud if we are alone—this highlights its social nature.

What is Tact?

Tact is a verbal response in which a person labels objects, actions, or events. In other words, it is how we describe what we see, smell, hear, touch, taste, or feel. Because our sensory receptors are diverse, the range of possible tacts is broad.

For example:

• Visual stimulus: A child sees their father’s car and says, “Daddy’s car.”
• Olfactory stimulus: Smelling jasmine and saying, “Jasmine perfume.”
• Tactile stimulus: Touching a wall and saying, “The wall is very rough.”
• Auditory stimulus: Hearing the cannon during Ramadan and saying, “That’s the iftar cannon.”
• Gustatory stimulus: Tasting food and saying, “It’s salty.”
• Internal states: Saying, “I have a headache.”

Tacts are not limited to spoken words. Sign language, for example, also counts as tact when used to label stimuli perceived through sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.

Development of Tacts in Childhood

Labeling usually begins early in childhood as soon as children start naming objects and people in their environment—especially those that are highly reinforcing for them. Children often first name what they like or who they are attached to. Typically, they acquire hundreds of nouns before verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. In other words, children begin by labeling objects with single words before describing them with colors, actions, or qualities.

Difference Between Tact and Mand

Tact is quite different from mand (requesting). As we discussed earlier, a mand occurs when a child wants something, requests it (through pointing, words, or picture exchange), and receives the desired item.

In contrast, the tact sequence begins with perceiving something (seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing, or feeling), producing a verbal label, and receiving a consequence that may vary. It might be social praise, confirmation of correctness, a nod, or even a tangible reinforcer (e.g., getting candy after correctly naming body parts).

Types of Tacts: Pure and Impure

• Pure tact: A spontaneous label prompted directly by the environment. Example: A child hears popcorn popping and says, “Popcorn.” Or they smell it in the kitchen and say, “Popcorn.”
• Impure tact: Occurs when an additional stimulus is involved, such as a question or prompt. Example: The therapist shows a card with a dog and asks, “What’s this?” and the child responds, “Dog.” Impure tacts are common in training situations, with the goal of gradually transitioning the child to pure, spontaneous tacting in daily life.

Training Tacts

Before teaching tacts, the child should have sufficient echoic skills (ability to repeat sounds and words), which support fluent word production. Research by Kodak and Clements (2009) found that echoic training before tact training increased children’s independent tact responses during sessions, especially for those learning to use verbal communication.

It is also important for the child to already have a repertoire of mands (requests), since it is easier to train a child to label items they already request or actions they perform.

Parents should remember that tact development relies on enriching the child’s environment with stimuli that engage their senses, encourage interaction, and expose them to a variety of names and labels.

Written by: Hossam Fotouh Abdelsalam Shararah
Reviewed by: Lama Ayoub, BCBA – Applied Behavior Analysis