Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching is a process to help learners expand their verbal skills. While the term incidental teaching often refers to everyday activities as opportunities for learning, incidental teaching in ABA intervention has a more specific definition and suggested steps. For our purposes, incidental teaching is defined as waiting for the learner to initiate a request or a conversation and then responding in ways that foster more language. The procedure is broken down into the following steps: 1. Child initiates for an item or activity. Initiation could be in the form of verbal
language, sign language, picture exchange, gesturing, pointing, or leading. 2. Adult requests an elaboration in the form of a a. Non-verbal cue, such as shrugging shoulders, looking expectantly, or pointing to the item. b. Verbal cue , such as “What do you want?” c. Verbal model , such as “Say, I want juice.” 3. Child responds with a slightly better response than the first initiation. For example, attempting to name an object is better than only pointing to it 4. Adult provides the child with the requested object. (See the resources for suggestions on how to increase the number of correct and elaborated responses.)
Example 1 A desired toy train is out of reach on the child’s dresser. The child stretches his arm over the dresser but cannot reach the train. The parent says, “What do you want? Train?” The child says, “T’ain!” The parent gives the train to the child. Example 2 A child opens his lunchbox and finds that there is no straw for his juicebox. The teacher notices the student’s predicament and looks expectantly at him, waiting for him to ask for help. The child says, “Uh. Oh.” The teacher says, “What do you need?” The child says, “Straw.” The teacher brings him a new straw.
Resources
Fenske, E. C., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2001). Incidental teaching: A not-discrete- trial teaching procedure. In C. Maurice, G. Green, & R. M. Foxx. (Eds.). Making a difference: Behavioral intervention for autism (pp. 75-82). Austin, TX: PRO-ED. Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1982). How to use incidental teaching for elaborating language. Lawrence, KS: H&H Enterprises.
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ABA Principles & Methods
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