Origins and Definition of Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching was developed by Betty Hart and Todd Risley at the University of Kansas in the 1960s and 1970s. Their research, conducted in preschool settings with disadvantaged children, demonstrated that brief teaching interactions embedded within natural activities could produce significant gains in language complexity and spontaneous communication.
Hart and Risley (1975) defined incidental teaching as an interaction between an adult and a child that arises naturally in an unstructured situation and is used by the adult to transmit information or give the child practice in developing a skill. The key feature is that the teaching episode is initiated by the child, not the adult, making it fundamentally different from adult-directed discrete trial instruction.
Core Principles
Child Initiation
Every incidental teaching episode begins with the individual's initiation. The individual must show interest in something, whether by reaching, pointing, vocalizing, or verbally requesting, before the adult initiates the teaching interaction. This ensures that the individual is motivated and engaged from the start.
Environmental Arrangement
While the teaching is child-initiated, the environment is adult-arranged. The practitioner strategically sets up the environment to create situations where the individual is likely to initiate. This might involve placing preferred items in view but out of reach, providing insufficient materials (giving only one crayon when multiple colors are needed), or creating situations that require assistance (a closed container the child cannot open independently).
Elaboration
The teaching component involves prompting the individual to elaborate on their initiation. If the individual points to a cookie, the adult might model "I want cookie" or ask "what do you want?" The goal is to expand the individual's response beyond what they would have produced spontaneously.
Natural Reinforcement
The consequence for the individual's elaborated response is access to the item or activity they initiated about. If the child says "I want cookie," they receive the cookie. The reinforcer is directly and naturally related to the communication, promoting generalization.
Step-by-Step Procedure
Step 1: Arrange the Environment
Set up the physical space to create multiple opportunities for initiations. Place preferred items where they are visible but not freely accessible. Create situations that naturally require communication. Have a variety of materials available to capture interest.
Step 2: Wait for an Initiation
Position yourself near the individual and wait. Resist the urge to prompt or direct. Watch for any indication of interest: reaching, looking, pointing, vocalizing, or verbal requests. The initiation is the signal to begin the teaching episode.
Step 3: Approach and Attend
When the individual initiates, move closer, establish eye contact if appropriate, and show interest in what the individual wants. This signals that you are attending to their communication.
Step 4: Request Elaboration
Based on the individual's current skill level, prompt them to elaborate their response. For a child who pointed at juice, you might model "juice," ask "what do you want?", or, for a more advanced communicator, prompt "tell me the whole sentence." The elaboration target should be just slightly above the individual's current independent level.
Step 5: Provide the Natural Reinforcer
When the individual produces the elaborated response (or a reasonable attempt), immediately provide the requested item or activity. Pair the delivery with social praise to strengthen the response further.
Step 6: Return to the Natural Context
The teaching episode should be brief, lasting only seconds. After delivering the reinforcer, step back and allow the individual to engage with the item naturally. Wait for the next initiation to begin another teaching episode.
Clinical Applications
Language Expansion
Incidental teaching is most commonly used to expand language skills. For a child who says "car," the practitioner might model "red car" or "I want car." Each interaction pushes the individual's communication to a slightly higher level while maintaining their motivation through natural reinforcement.
Social Communication
Incidental teaching can target social communication skills such as greetings, requests for help, sharing, and commenting. By arranging the environment to create natural opportunities for these social exchanges, the practitioner embeds social skill practice into everyday activities.
Academic Skills
In educational settings, incidental teaching can embed academic content into preferred activities. A child interested in dinosaurs might be prompted to count dinosaur figures, name their colors, or practice reading dinosaur names during play.
Comparing Incidental Teaching to Other Naturalistic Approaches
Incidental teaching shares features with other naturalistic strategies but has distinct characteristics. Compared to PRT, incidental teaching places greater emphasis on the child's initiation as the trigger and does not systematically incorporate all PRT motivational variables. Compared to milieu teaching, incidental teaching uses a narrower range of prompting strategies and relies more heavily on environmental arrangement and modeling. All naturalistic approaches share the use of child interests, natural reinforcers, and embedding teaching within ongoing activities.
Common Mistakes
- Prompting before the individual initiates: The defining feature of incidental teaching is that the episode begins with the individual's initiation. Prompting first turns the interaction into adult-directed instruction.
- Requesting too large an elaboration: If the prompt demands too great an increase over the individual's current level, the individual may not respond, leading to failed teaching trials and decreased motivation.
- Making episodes too long: Incidental teaching episodes should be brief. Prolonged teaching interactions within a single episode can become aversive and reduce the individual's future initiations.
- Not arranging the environment: Waiting for initiations in an environment that does not promote them leads to very few teaching opportunities. Thoughtful environmental arrangement is essential.
BCBA Exam Relevance
Incidental teaching may appear on the BCBA exam in questions about naturalistic teaching strategies, language interventions, environmental arrangement, and generalization programming. Know how to identify incidental teaching from a vignette, describe its procedural steps, and compare it to other naturalistic and structured teaching approaches. Understand why child initiation and natural reinforcement are critical to the procedure's definition and effectiveness.