System: Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching is a method of teaching in which the interaction is child initiated and the reinforcer is directly related to the behavior being taught (Hart & Riley, 1975). Incidental teaching makes use of motivating operations by ensuring the environment is set up to encourage the child's interest and then waiting for the child to seek assistance from an adult to gain access to the desired item (Hart & Risley, 1975). The adult will then reward the child with the desired item or activity after receiving the correct response from the child with the level of prompting appropriate to the child's developmental level and necessary to promote errorless learning. Prompts are then faded until the child can respond independently. Incidental teaching has been used most often to promote language acquisition as well as social and daily living skills (Autism Training Solutions, n.d.) in individuals with autism and other developmental disabilities. Incidental teaching can be utilized by teachers, behaviorist as well as parents. For this intervention, incidental teaching will be used to teach a 4.5-year-old boy how to label prepositions.
Literature Review
In the study published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, McGee, Krantz, & McClannahan (1985) compared the effect of incidental teaching to traditional teaching methods on acquisition, teaching efficiency and generalization of preposition use by children with autism. The participants used for the study were 3 boys ages 7 ½, 8 and 11 years old who were diagnosed with autism and had delayed expressive language. Incidental teaching took place in a classroom setting with preferred items placed on shelves or with plastic shoebox related to the target pr...
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...: Naturalistic Teaching Strategies. Skills That Can be Taught with NaTS [Video file]. Retrieved March 3, 2014, from http://www.autismtrainingsolutions.com
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McGee, G. G., & Daly, T. (2007). Incidental Teaching of Age-Appropriate Social Phrases to Children With Autism. Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 32(2), 112–123.
McGee, G. G., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (1985). The facilitative effects of incidental teaching on preposition use by autistic children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 18(1), 17–31. doi:10.1901/jaba.1985.18-17
The sudsy that wanted to examine the effectiveness of completion spelling assignment correctly using the IPAD as a reinforcement. The setting would be conducted at home, with a ten ear of client diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The dependent variable would be the completion of one homework assignment would be completing the given number of questions, and the independent variable would be the IPAD. The intervention would use the IPAD as a reinforcement to low the client to use when the client correctly solved the spelling questions. The behavior analysts determine that during the baseline was and average of three problems, then the intervention was set to five, seven, and ten in four consecutive sessions where criterion levels were met. The limitations could be that the reinforced us not used by other professionals and that generalization with other clients could may not be determined. However, it is appropriate ti use because spelling is already in the client repertoire, and provide a stepwise fashion
The topic of today’s reading was the ABCs of Behavior. For one of the assigned readings, Starting with ABA, Dr. Lovaas studied a group of 59 children with autism and examined the best ways for them to learn. He discovered that 19 of the children who received 40 hours a week of ABA therapy had the best outcomes, and within that group, a 47% became indistinguishable from their typical peers by first grade. Therefore, if ABA teaching techniques were used intensively during the formative years, fewer children required services after the first grade, through adulthood. Also this reading mentioned another form of ABA, the Verbal Behavior (VB) approach, this builds on all the ABA research but also enhances a child’s ability to learn functional language. VB adds an Applied Behavior Analysis approach to teach all skills, it is a fairly new and popular approach that has actually emerged from the basic teachings of ABA. But, it was not until 1998 that parents of children with autism got interested in the VB approach, and the Assessment of Basic Language and Learning Skills (ABLLS). The ABLLS is a great tool for a consultant trained in the VB approach, but for a parent without any background in ABA, it can be very overwhelming. Nonetheless, the popularity of this book among parents led to a significant shift to the discrete-trial teaching (DTT) or Lovaas approach towards VB. In DTT, the therapist presents a demand, gets a response, and then gives a consequence (a reward or punishment). The VB works on the same principles of demands, responses and consequences, but the approach is different. As appeared on the second reading, The ABCs of ABA, every behavior contains three parts: the antecedent (A), which is what happens just...
Development of social skills is very important for children that are diagnosed with autism because of ...
Incidental teaching focuses on child-initiated interactions. (Hall, 2013) Incidental teaching is used to increase skills of individuals with autism spectrum disorders. (Hall, 2013) A study done by Hart and Risley (1975) looked at the incidental teaching process used at the preschool age to aide in teaching language. Incidental teaching has been the most frequent strategy that has been used to teach language. When using incidental teaching a child’s request may be verbal or nonverbal. Examples include reaching for an object that is out of one’s reach, requesting food or a toy or calling an adult’s name. There is a series of decisions that an adult can use to respond to the child’s request. These choices include: if the occasion should be used for incidental teaching: if so then a choice regarding the language behavior that is obtained from the child, and then a choice has to be made concerning the cue that will be used to initiate instruction, the cur could be focus of attention by itself, or in addition to the focused attention a verbal cue as well. If the individual does not respond to the cue, then a choice concerning the degree of prompt to be used, the “fullest degree: a request for imitation; medium degree: a request for partial imitation, or minimal degree: a request for the terminal language behavior.” (Hart & Risley, 1975) This study was performed on boys and girls between the ages of four years old to five years old. The baseline procedures ensured that the children had a variety of vocabulary for use in sentences. The sentences that they were taught was “I want x so I can y.” The second step of the procedure was the use of incidental teaching of compound sentences directed to teachers. After thirty-six days of school, the incidental teaching began to occur when the children needed assistance in trying to get different preschool materials.
The topic for today’s reading was, Interpreting the Language Assessment. In one of the assigned readings, Interpreting the Behavioral Language Assessment, emphasized that the purpose of the behavioral assessment is to provide the tester with enough information to design an individualized language intervention program for a specific child. Therefore, to establish an effective intervention program for particular child the tester must identify the most appropriate starting point for initial training. The tester should review each skill in relation to the entire set of skills identified in the assessment. It is usually best to focus on the development of a few key language areas at one time, even though the child may have weaknesses in several of the areas reviewed by the assessment. Also, it is important that the tester not simply pick the areas with the lowest scores and recommend training begin in those areas, because is very important to ensure that the instructor is able to observe the learner acquiring skills relatively short period of time, in order to maintain his motivation to continue conducting language training activities. Only a few areas are selected for the initial intervention, and the focus of the intervention will be continuously changed as the student acquires new skills. Finally, the language intervention program develops the child’s skills such that he could score at least a five on each of the areas of the assessment. This score of five in a specific area may indicate that a particular skill area may not require as intensive intervention as those skills with a lower score. Furthermore, for the second reading, The Benefits of Skinner’s Analysis of Verbal Behavior for Children with Autism, stated t...
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a complex developmental disorder that affects a person’s social interaction and communication. This disorder is mainly characterized by having difficulty with social interaction, communication, and having restricted behaviors. Difficulty with social interaction means someone will struggle to communicate their feelings/emotions, understand how others feel or think, develop peer relationships, and understand nonverbal behaviors (eye gaze, facial expressions, etc). Difficulty with communication will vary among the individual. Some individuals will develop expressive language, while others will not. The speech of those that do develop expressive language will often be repetitive, rote, and lack meaning. They may struggle with turn taking in conversation and topic maintenance. Those individuals who do not develop expressive language typically do not use other modalities to communicate, like pointing or gestures. The last characteristic of the autistic spectrum disorder is having repetitive behaviors or activities. Typically children on the spectrum will play with their toys in an unusual manner, or may prefer only one toy, movie, or activity. Changes in daily schedule are hard for children on the spectrum to adapt to; usually these children like the same daily schedule. Bass, Duchowny, and Llabre (2009) state, “It is possible that animal-assisted activities provide a multisensory environment that will prove beneficial to children with profound social and communication deficits.”
The Behavior and Communication approaches are based on structure, organization, direction, and family participation. Applied Behavior Analysis is “the science of learning and human behavior” (Atwood 35). ABA uses step-by-step progression to break down skills as well as using reinforcement and extinction. Reinforcement is the act of rewarding good behavior, while extinction is taking away these rewards. There are different forms of Applied Behavior Analysis, two of which are Disc...
2. People with autism have problems with abstract and conceptual thinking. Some may eventually acquire abstract skills, but others never will. When abstract concepts must be used, use visual cues, such as drawings or written words, to augment the abstract idea. Avoid asking vague questions such as, "Why did you do that?" Instead, say, "I did not like it when you slammed your book down when I said it was time for gym. Next time put the book down gently, and tell me that you are angry. Were you showing me that you did not want to go to gym, or that you did not want to stop reading?" Avoid asking essay-type questions. Be as concrete as possible in all your interactions with these students.
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Luiselli, James K. "Verbal Language and Communication." Teaching and Behavior Support for Children and Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Practitioner's Guide. New York: Oxford UP, 2011. Print.
Van der Meer, L., Kagohara, D., Roche, L., Sutherland, D., Balandin, S., Green, V. A., O'Reilly, M. F., Lancioni, G. E., Marschick, P.B., & Sigafoos, J. (2013). Teaching multi-step requesting and social communication to two children with autism spectrum disorders with three AAC options. Augmentative and Alternative Communication, 29(3), 222-234. doi: 10.3109/07434618.2013.815801
The main dynamic of Applied Behavior Analysis is it capacity of being able to measuring Behavior. Behavior is described as “The dead Man Rule” (If a dead man can do it than it is not a behavior, the behavior must be obs...
Children with autism have multiple characteristic impairments in their social interaction skills. This results from the lack of “Theory of Mind” in autistic individuals. Autistic children have difficulty interpreting what another person may be thinking or feeling. Social impairments may cause the child to act inappropriately in social interactions and prevent the children from truly taking part in interactions. The children have difficulty recognizing social cues and responding to cues. Autistic children have a hard time forming relationships as a result of these impairments. Social stories, Applied Behavior Analysis, and Pivotal Response Training are three therapy techniques that help children with autism learn appropriate social behavior. Social stories allow the children to practice the situation in a lower stress environment. Applied Behavior Analysis utilizes positive reinforce to teach desired skills. Pivotal Response Training allows the child to learn social skills while in a natural play environment. Learning social skills through these techniques enable the children to have more meaningful relationships and engage more in their community.
Dempsey, I. & Foreman, P. ( 2001). A Review of Educational Approaches for Individuals with Autism. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 48 (1), 105-116.
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