Incidental Teaching from Jigsaw Trust on Vimeo.
While DTT has been shown to be highly effective, it is typically carried out under conditions that differ from the ?natural? conditions of every day activities. It is also instructor led rather than learner led, which can make it a disliked approach for some learners.
Naturalistic teaching procedures are behavioural interventions that are more learner-led and take advantage of naturally occurring teaching opportunities within everyday activities. Naturalistic teaching procedures attempt to programme for generalisation (i.e. teach in a way that will lead to the performance of a skill outside of the environment in which it was taught).
One common naturalistic intervention is Incidental Teaching.? Incidental teaching is often carried out in environments where there are many items that a client enjoys and is motivated to engage with. In some circumstances, the RBT may seed the environment with preferred objects and activities.
The procedure begins when the learner approaches a desired item. An approach can be physically approaching a reinforcer, reaching towards or a vocalisation.
The RBT requests an elaboration. The nature of the elaboration depends on the learner. For a learner who has no reliable communication system, the RBT may prompt a mand in the form of pointing. For a learner who typically requests items using a single word, the RBT might prompt a mand using the phrase ?I want?.
Following the completion of the elaboration, the learner receives access to the desired item.
Let?s look at example:
Eimear sets up the classroom so that Jack?s preferred school toys (e.g. Spiderman, paints, balls, sand) are out of reach on high shelves or in transparent locked boxes.
The learning opportunity begins when Jack walks up to Eimear and says ?ball?
Eimear requests that Jack elaborates. She provides an echoic prompt to say ?Green ball? as the ball Jack is looking at its green.
Jack receives the green ball if he elaborates on the initial mand (request)
As with other behavioural interventions, prompts are faded over time in response to a learner?s progress. Incidental teaching can be very useful when you are trying to teach a learner to use more elaborate, specific or complex requests.
To recap, the incidental teaching opportunity involves:
A demonstration of interest by some form of approach behaviour
The teacher requests an elaboration and prompts the elaboration if required
The learner?s manding behaviour is reinforced, when they carry out the elaboration.
Incidental Teaching Tactics
Sometimes, people with intellectual and developmental disabilities can become dependent on verbal prompts. An alternative is to incorporate a Time-Delay Procedure. For example:
There are marbles in a jar. Jack approaches the jar and attempts to open it.
Eimear waits 5 seconds. If Jack mands, she praises him and opens the jar. If Jack does not, she mands ?What do you want?? or models the ?I need help? response.
As Jack?s appropriate responses increase, Eimear increases the length of the time-delay
Another tactic that can be used when using incidental teaching is Behaviour Chain Interruption. As you learned in earlier modules, a behaviour chain involves a sequence of behaviors that when linked together to produce a terminal reinforcer. Each behaviour in the chain, changes the person?s environment. That change serves as the SD for the next step in the behaviour chain (e.g. making a sandwich). Let?s look at an example:
Jack is carrying out work experience at his local Subway. Jack is capable of making sandwiches, however his boss reports that he does not seek assistance when he cannot find items or ingredients at work. Ellie supports Jack at home, so she decides to create opportunities to teach Jack to ask for help of information.
Before Jack goes to make himself a sandwich, she moves one of the items required to finish the task. This could be a knife, butter or some other ingredient. For the sake of this example, let?s say it is the knife.
When Jack cannot find the knife, she wants him to ask ?Where is the knife??
If he does not initially request, she may use a time delay or a non-verbal prompt. If after the delay he still does not request, she may indicate for Jack to request help, or she may model the desired behaviour using an echoic prompt.
Advantages of Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching has several advantages. These include:
- Teaching occurs during naturally occurring situations and this promotes generalization
- It is learner led and this can be a preferred approach for some learners
- It teaches initiation
- Incidental Teaching can be graduated ? complexity can be built up over time by requiring more elaborate requests
Disadvantages of Incidental Teaching
The disadvantages of Incidental Teaching are:
- It can only be used to teach manding
- Those teaching may require a too difficult elaboration if they do not understand the current abilities of the learner
- It requires the instructor to notice ?teachable moments? and act quickly
- Some learners may become upset if they are momentarily denied access to something they want