Incidental teaching aba examples

Incidental Teaching

Many teachers and parents struggle with how to best teach preacademic and academic skills to young students with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and ensure that the skills generalize to a variety of settings, people, and materials. Incidental teaching is a strategy that can be used to address these issues. It applies methods of applied behavior analysis to preacademic skills taught in typical preschool or home settings.

This topic introduces you to how you can teach preacademic skills such as colors, size, and shape to children with ASD in typical settings, within the daily routines. Specifically, you will learn how to apply the strategy and develop data collection methods, receive suggestions for materials to teach adjectives, read a case study, find the answers to frequently asked questions, and take a short quiz.

What is Incidental Teaching?

Incidental teaching involves structuring and sequencing educational objectives so that they occur within ongoing, typical activities and take advantage of student interests and motivation (McGee, Daly, & Jacobs, 1994). Incidental teaching uses strategies from the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) to present learning objectives within typical early childhood activities, instead of sitting face to face with the child at a table in a clinical setting. Teachers arrange the environment by placing preferred toys and activities of each student within sight, but not within reach, to encourage the student to initiate teaching sessions based on preplanned learning objectives. Once the child shows an interest in the materials by gesturing or requesting an item or activity, the teacher prompts an elaboration on the initiation. The child subsequently obtains the desired item upon generating the elaboration. For example, a student may say, “barn,” to request a toy barn, followed by the teacher’s question, “what color barn?” When the student says, “red barn,” she is allowed to play with the barn for a couple of minutes. A nonverbal student might work on the skill of asking for help using a gesture. For example, the teacher could place the child’s favorite toy, a dump truck, in a plastic container that the child could not open. Once the child attempts to open the box, the teacher physically prompt him to hand the box to her for help.

There are several advantages to incidental teaching. First, it is thought that teaching within the context of typical preschool activities promotes generalization of skills (McGee, Morrier, & Daly, 1999). In addition, social initiations, a deficit of many children with ASD, are an integral part of incidental teaching. The basis for incidental teaching lies in the student initiating a teaching session. Lessons involve interactions in which the child expresses interest and the adult responds with prompts and praise.

Families are also able to integrate incidental teaching into typical daily routines by finding ways to encourage their children to elaborate during everyday activities (e.g., dinner time, outside play, bed time). For example, Johnna’s mother wants to teach her to be able to name body parts. Initially, she targets this skill during bath time, an activity Johnna enjoys, by getting the washcloth soapy and waiting for Johnna to indicate (e.g., pointing, pulling mom’s hand toward her) what part she wants washed. Her mother then prompts her to repeat the name of that part (e.g., “wash arm”).

Steps

The following are essential steps in carrying out incidental teaching:

1. The teacher or parent chooses an educational objective. Example:Labeling the letters of the alphabet.

2. The adult arranges the natural environment to promote student motivation and interest in the materials related to teaching the objective. For example, the child can see the materials, but does not have access to them, or the adult sees the child playing with a toy and gently takes the toy and plays with it. Example: Joshua enjoys puzzles. His teacher, Miss May, finds a puzzle with the letters of the alphabet. During center time while Joshua is working on puzzles, Miss May puts the puzzle on the table with the letters in a clear container that Joshua is unable to open.

3. The child shows interest in the materials through verbalization or gesture, thus initiating the teaching session. Example:Joshua points to the box and says, “letters.”

4. The adult encourages the child to elaborate on his or her initiation, based on the student’s developmental level. If the adult does not understand what item or activity the child wants, the adult first asks, “What do you want?” Ways to encourage elaborated responses include:

· Ask a question (e.g., “What color car do you want?” or, “Where is the car?”)

· Make a gesture, sound, or word (e.g., point to the blue car)

· Model the desired response (e.g., “blue car”) Example: Miss May opens the box and holds up the letter R, asking, “What letter do you want?”

5. If the child responds correctly to the prompt, the adult provides specific praise and gives the child brief access to the desired materials. Example: Joshua says, “Letter R,” so Miss May says, “That’s right! It’s the letter R!,” and allows him to put the letter in the puzzle.

6. If the child does not respond or responds incorrectly, the adult provides up to three more prompts, such as providing the necessary words. Once the child responds correctly, he or she receives specific praise and brief access to the materials. Example: Joshua repeats, “Letter,” so Miss May says, “Letter R.” Joshua repeats, “Letter R.” Miss May says, “Right, that’s R!,” and allows him to put the letter in the puzzle.

7. The adult “takes a turn” with the materials (i.e., replaces them on the shelf or plays with them, or, says, “I want the green car” and picks up the green car), The steps begin again. Example: Miss May closes the box again and waits for Joshua to say, “Letter,” or point to the box.

The incidental teaching session should end with success (i.e., child responds correctly and receives access tot he materials). The session should be brief and end once the child loses interest.

See Wetherby and Prizant’s (1989) “communicative temptations for a communication assessment” and Susan Boswell’s suggestions for “communication incentives” at http://www.teacch.com/teacchco.htm for more ideas on how to elicit communicative initiations.

Evaluation

To ensure that generalization takes place, evaluation should take place not only during teaching sessions, but also within other settings, with all those with whom the child communicates, and with a wide range of instructional materials. Data should be collected frequently, weekly at minimum, to make certain that the child is making progress. In some situations it would be helpful to collect data within each teaching session. If the data do not show improvement, another strategy should be considered or the method of delivery should be assessed to judge if changes are necessary.