Autistic individuals have a variety of evidence-based interventions to help manage symptoms and improve quality of life, including Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA), Speech Therapy, or Occupational Therapy (OT). These therapies help individuals acquire skills that can significantly lead to independence.
This article will focus on incidental teaching, part of ABA, and on acquiring skills in natural settings. However, its use is not limited to ABA, especially not to autistic people, as all learners can benefit from this interactive strategy.
What is Incidental Teaching in ABA Therapy?
Incidental teaching involves using natural situations as opportunities for teaching skills rather than creating controlled environments or controlling situations. It encourages the child to lead the situation by showing the therapist or caregiver the activity or game they most interest in. The therapists then tailor the teaching session according to natural interests, and apply positive reinforcement in a manner that the child is likely to see in the real world..
Incidental teaching is effective because interest and motivation are already present. Therefore, teaching the lesson becomes easier and generally receives a welcoming response from the individual.
Who Is Incidental Teaching For?
As mentioned earlier, incidental teaching is common in ABA and helpful for autistic individuals. But, truly it can be applied to individuals with other learning disorders or developmental delays as well. In fact, incidental teaching is natural for all individuals. For example, if you have a teenager who is getting ready to learn to drive, you may have them pump gas for you when you need it. Or when you are on the playground with a toddler, you may count how many times they swing and encourage them to count as well!
The typical age range for people receiving incidental teaching is 2 - 9 years, but people who are older than this age bracket can also benefit from this strategy.
Does Incidental Teaching Help People Diagnosed with Autism?
Incidental teaching is not only an essential part of ABA therapy but has proven to have long-term benefits for autistic individuals even after their ABA sessions are completed.
By using naturally occurring situations as teaching opportunities for various skills, autistic people can learn how to apply their behavioral, social, and communication skills in real-life situations. They are learning from examples and context from day one and do not have to generalize their skills outside of a clinic or classroom.
Most importantly, incidental teaching develops communication skills in people with autism leading them to have positive and helpful social interactions and convey what they need help with or what their preferences are with their peers, parents, or therapist. This contributes to making the overall therapy session effective and makes the situation easier not just for autistic persons but for their caregivers and therapists as well.
Steps Involved in Incidental Teaching
Like other interventions, incidental teaching also uses characteristic steps to increase its efficacy. Here are some steps typically involved in incidental teaching.
Create an Interesting Environment
While incidental teaching involves using natural settings, parents or caregivers can observe the situations their child typically gets engrossed in or finds interesting and take steps to create them at home or in a clinic or classroom. For example, creating an indoor play area or make-shift camp in the living room, etc. The point is to be creative and create this in a place that will naturally receive the child’s attention.
Control Access
If the play area or desired activity is easily accessible, chances for the child to ask for help are low, which means it cannot be turned into a learning opportunity. Parents or caregivers need to make the fun activity obvious and visible but control access to it, so the child’s spiked interest in the situation can be effectively turned into a teaching and learning game.
Let the Child Initiate
Letting the child take the lead ensures they are already interested in the particular activity or object and want to interact more with it. Therefore, they will be more open to asking and answering questions or learning to communicate in that setting.
Use Prompting and Positive Reinforcement
Once the child has expressed interest, caregivers, and therapists can use prompting to encourage them to talk or point in the direction of what they like and answer questions regarding color or preferences. This way the autistic child will be encouraged to learn and say new vocabulary words or use gestures to communicate with their caregivers. Positive reinforcement like providing the toy they request further encourages the child to associate the skills with the real-life situation.
Examples of Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching can be applied in a broad range of situations and environments. When a child is curious about an object or intrigued by it, it is a good time to use incidental teaching to teach new skills, words, or information about that particular object or activity.
For example, parents can get a new toy and place it on the top shelf, making it visible but inaccessible. When the child points to it or shows that they want to play with it, the parent can use that as an opportunity to teach them to say the name of the toy, or to say please and thank you.
Similarly, when teaching a child facts about animals, animal toys can be used to teach them the names or different body parts of animals like tails and whiskers, which will be more interesting for them than reading about these characteristics in a book. Going to the zoo to talk about animals may be even more intriguing.
Conclusion
Incidental teaching is an effective strategy for teaching people with autism and other disorders to learn basic communication skills, or social skills and further improve these skills in naturalistic settings. The focus is to leverage a situation the autistic person is already engrossed in to help them generalize their skills, and apply them to real-life situations.
