JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSISINCIDENTAL TEACHING OF.docx

JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS
INCIDENTAL TEACHING OF LANGUAGE
IN THE PRESCHOOL'
BETrY HART AND TODD R. RISLEY
THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
"Incidental teaching" denotes a process whereby language skills
of labelling and de-
scribing are learned in naturally occurring adult-child
interactions. In the present study,
15-min daily samples of the spontaneous speech of 11 children
were recorded during
free play over eight months of preschool. After incidental
teaching of compound sen-
tences, increases in unprompted use of compound sentences
were seen for all the chil-
dren, first directed to teachers, and then to children, in
accordance with who attended
to the children's requests for play materials. The incidental
teaching procedure also
stimulated spontaneous variety in speech, and appears to have
general applicability to
child learning settings.
DESCRIPTORS: disadvantaged children, language, compound
sentences, incidental
teaching, spontaneous speech, verbal training
For many years, language development has

been a focus in preschool programs of every
variety and persuasion, with authorities on pre-
school practice, such as Read (1966), emphasiz-
ing the need to provide young children with
extensive opportunities for labelling, description,
and differentiation. As Weikart (1972) pointed
out, research has shown that children profit
from any preschool curriculum, as long as it
involves a wide range of experiences and situa-
tions that require language expression; the cur-
riculum is not for the child, but to focus the
teacher's efforts to help the child learn. The
opportunities for one-to-one language interac-
'This research was supported by a grant (HD-
03144) from the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development at the University of Kan-
sas. Data analysis was aided by the Office of Educa-
tion through the Kansas Center for Research in Early
Childhood Education. The authors wish to acknowl-
edge the contributions of Cordelia Murphy and Nancy
Reynolds, the teachers; and of Maxine Preuitt, Ella
Murphy, and Lorene Barnett, the observers. The data
were processed with the aid of the staff and facilities
at the University of Kansas Computation Center. Re-
prints may be obtained from the Living Environ-
ments Group, care of Todd R. Risley, Department of
Human Development, University of Kansas, Law-
rence, Kansas 66045.
tions between teacher and child are not only
frequent in a preschool program, but have the
advantage of allowing teachers to adjust their
teaching to individual personality variables
(Blank, 1972). Numerous excellent examples of
language-teaching interactions have been writ-

ten (Blank, 1972, p. 135; McAffee, 1972, p. 75;
Read, 1966, p. 332). However, as Cazden
(1972) observed, few good descriptions of the
process variables (the specific behaviors of
teachers and children in the educational setting)
are available. The present article describes the
one-to-one teacher-child incidental teaching
process, with, as an example of this process,
an experimental study that was a follow-up of
two earlier studies of the incidental teaching
process (Hart and Risley, 1968, 1974).
METHOD
The Incidental Teaching Process
Incidental teaching refers to the interaction
between an adult and a single child, which
arises naturally in an unstructured situation
such as free play and which is used by the adult
to transmit information or give the child prac-
tice in developing a skill. An incidental teaching
411
1975, 8, 411-420 NUMBER 4 (WINTER 1975)
BETTY HART and TODD R. RISLEY
situation is child-selected; that is, the child
initiates interaction by requesting assistance
from the adult. Incidental teaching has been
most frequently applied to the teaching of
language and is here considered in that context.

The child's request may be verbal or nonverbal:
for instance, stretching for an object beyond his
reach, struggling with clothing, crying, calling
the adult's name, asking for a play material,
for food, or for information. When the adult
responds to the child's request, a series of
decisions ensues:
(1) whether to use the occasion for
incidental teaching; if yes, then
(2) a decision concerning the language
behavior to be obtained from the child,
and
(3) a decision concerning the cue to be
used to initiate instruction, whether
(a) the cue of focused attention alone,
or
(b) the cue of focused attention plus
a verbal cue.
And, if the child does not respond to the
cue,
(4) a decision concerning the degree of
prompt to be used, whether
(a) fullest degree: a request for imi-
tation
(b) medium degree: a request for
partial imitation, or
(c) minimal degree: a request for the

terminal language behavior.
If the adult decides (1) to use the child's
request for assistance as an occasion for language
learning, the adult then makes an immediate
decision (2) concerning the terminal language
to be obtained from the child, which will
terminate the incidental teaching occasion. The
terminal language behavior selected will, of
course, vary according to the situation, age,
personality, and language ability of the child.
Then, the adult decides (3) on the cue to be
given the child in order to initiate instruction.
Just as the language-behavior goal is, in the end,
adult-level language performance, so also is the
cue: the incidental teaching procedure is aimed
at having the child learn spontaneous adult-like
language responses to the cues of the adult
world. Thus, the first, most subtle, and natural
cue is the presence of the adult's attention
(decision 3a). The focusing of another person's
attention should function, finally, as a cue for a
language response from an individual needing
assistance, whether in purchasing an item in a
store, in asking for information, or in specifying
a problem. Therefore, the adult always presents
this cue first: physical approach, eye contact,
and a questioning look. If the child does not
respond immediately to the cue of focused
attention, the adult adds a verbal cue (decision
3b). In the incidental teaching process, these
verbal cues should be situation-general, so that
the child can learn the category of language
response appropriate to the specific occasion.
Thus, when the adult introduces an incidental

teaching interaction with the verbal cue, "What
do you want?", the child learns that a sentence
of explanation is called for, as "Do this", "Give
me one", "What are these?". On the other hand,
when the adult introduces an incidental teaching
interaction with the verbal cue, "What is that?",
the child learns that a label is called for.
Through variations of the latter cue, as, "What
color is that?", the child learns that a descrip-
tive label is called for. Maintaining a rela-
tively small number of verbal cues not only
helps the child discriminate the nature of the
language response called for, but helps the
adult respond immediately and consistently to
a child's initiation of an incidental teaching
situation.
Thus, when the child initiates the incidental
teaching situation by requesting assistance, the
adult responds first with the cue of adult
presence and attention (decision 3a), and, then,
if the child does not respond to this cue with
spontaneous speech, the adult offers a verbal cue
(decision 3b). In the incidental teaching situa-
tion, the child is in need of help; he may be
lacking in language skills, but his need is real
412
INCIDENTAL TEACHING OF LANGUAGE IN THE
PRESCHOOL
and therefore his attention is fully focused on
the assistance implicit in the adult's presence

and attention. The adult may be sure that the
child will respond if the adult enables him to do
so by selecting a terminal language behavior that
he can produce or that the adult can help him to
produce. In this sense, the child who has selected
the occasion, controls it, for he can nearly always
find assistance elsewhere, or do without, if the
adult's help is too difficult to obtain. Therefore,
the adult keeps the incidental teaching interac-
tion short and comfortable for the child: if the
adult presents a cue and the child does not
respond appropriately, the adult prompts him
(decision 4); if he does not respond appropri-
ately to this prompt, he may be prompted once
more. Then, the adult helps the child anyway,
reflects on his/her own behavior in order to
discover what kind of prompt would have
elicited the appropriate language from that
individual child, and tries again the next time
the child selects an occasion for instruction. The
degree of prompt used will depend on the in-
dividual child and the situation. The first,
fullest degree of prompt (decision 4a) is always
used when the terminal language behavior to
be obtained from the child is one that the adult
has not previously obtained: the adult prompts
by presenting to the child the terminal language
behavior itself, and asking the child to imitate
it. For example, to a barely verbal child strug-
gling to put on clothing, the adult might say,
"What do you want? [the verbal cue] You
need to tell me. Say, 'Do this' ". As soon as the
child imitates the terminal language behavior
(says, "Do this"), the adult responds with praise
and assistance. To an older, more verbal child,
who has responded to the cue of the adult's

presence and attention with a request for infor-
mation, as, "What time is it?", the adult might
say, "The little hand is on five, so it's five
o'clock." Note here that the adult's assistance
(telling the time) is given only after the child
has imitated the terminal language behavior;
such an imitation would be requested only if a
child with this degree of verbal skill had never
been prompted to describe the hands on a clock
previously, and the adult's goal in this incidental
teaching situation is not to teach the child to
tell time, but to teach him the descriptive lan-
guage skills that will be used when the adult
does begin to teach him how to tell time. It is
essential that a child be able to respond to this
fullest degree of prompt, one that calls for
imitation ("Say ") before any other is used;
if a child cannot imitate an adult verbalization,
he must be taught this language skill first. The
procedures for teaching imitation have been
described in detail elsewhere (see, for instance,
Lovaas, 1966; Risley and Wolf, 1967).
The second, medium degree of prompt (deci-
sion 4b) involves partial imitation by the child
and reduction of the adult prompt until the
child is spontaneously responding with the
appropriate language. In the two examples
given above, this medium degree of prompt
would be used after the children were reliably
and spontaneously imitating the adult verbal-
ization, "Do this", or "The little hand is on
five". Then, the adult would say to the barely
verbal child in an identical incidental teaching
situation, "What do you want? [the verbal cue)

You need to tell me. Say 'Do '", and
wait for the child to produce, "Do this". With
the more verbal child, the adult would prompt
partial imitation by saying, "The little hand
is .. .", and then wait for the child to imitate the
phrase with the spontaneous addition of "on
five". In both cases, if the child does not say the
complete sentence, the adult prompts it by
asking the child, "Say the whole thing", and
then prompting the complete sentence if neces-
sary. It is essential that, if the terminal language
behavior is a sentence, the adult prompt the
entire language response before a further reduc-
tion in prompt is introduced. However, complete
sentences should not be required when the
labelling of objects and attributes is the terminal
language behavior in the incidental teaching
situation. In the above example, for instance, if
the goal of the incidental teaching was that the
child learn to label the numerals on the clock,
rather than to describe the location of the hands,
the terminal language behavior would be the
single-word label, "five".
In the third, minimal degree of prompt (deci-
sion 4c), the adult prompts by directly request-
ing the terminal language behavior. Thus, in
an identical incidental teaching situation with
the barely verbal child, the adult request would
be the statement, "You need to tell me" (i.e.,
verbalize, rather than whine or cry). Note that,

at this stage, the terminal language behavior
may be any verbal statement of need by the
child: the adult request is satisfied, for instance,
whether the child says, "Do this", or "Help
me", or "Tie my cap". In fact, such variety of
language is to be encouraged. With the older,
more verbal child, the adult request would be,
"Where is the little hand?". At this third, mini-
mal degree of prompting, when the child has
learned the terminal language response such
that he no longer needs to imitate any portion
of it, the adult begins to introduce variation in
requests for the behavior so that the child can
learn the many kinds of stimulus situations to
which the language behavior is appropriate. For
instance, the older, more verbal child could be
asked, on subsequent occasions of teaching him
to describe the position of the hands on a clock,
"Look at the clock", or "Is the little hand on
four?".
Finally, the fourth, zero degree of prompt is
the adult cue: the verbal cue, "What do you
want?" to the young child, or the cue of receptive
adult attention to the older child. Always, how-
ever, if the child does not respond appropriately
in the incidental teaching situation to a cue or a
prompt given by the adult, the adult immediately
presents a prompt of the preceding fuller degree;
the child's response always informs the adult
concerning the degree of prompt necessary for
learning for that child, and how much repeti-
tion of a given language behavior is necessary
in a given area or at a given stage of language
learning. The variety and extent of children's
language learning will thus be determined by

the skill of the adult and the frequency of
child-selection of occasions for instruction. The
frequency of instructional occasions is again
determined by the arrangement of the environ-
ment in which the child lives (see Risley, 1972).
The nature and degrees of adult prompts and
cues used in incidental teaching of labelling
objects and their attributes, and of describing
reasons for use of play materials, have been
described earlier (Hart and Risley, 1974); in
that study, the effectiveness of the incidental
teaching procedure was demonstrated. Several
questions remained, however, about the nature
and maintenance of language learned through
incidental teaching: whether spontaneous variety
of language resulted from the incidental teach-
ing, whether adult prompts continued to be
necessary throughout incidental teaching, and
whether the incidentally taught behavior would
generalize to persons other than the teachers of
it. The present study was undertaken to answer
these questions in a context of demonstrating the
effects of incidental teaching in promoting
children's regular use of compound sentences to
describe their reasons for using preschool play
materials.
Subjects and Setting
Eleven black children, five girls and six boys,
from low-income families living in or near a
federal housing project in Kansas City, Kansas,
served as subjects. At the end of the preschool
year, the children ranged in age from 4 yr 8 mo

to 5 yr 2 mo, and in IQ, as measured by the
PPVT, from 51 to 101. The mean age was 5
yr; the mean IQ was 73. The children attended
Turner House Preschool from 9 a.m. to 12 noon
four days per week. The daily schedule and
recording procedures were identical to those
described in Hart and Risley (1974): during two
half-hour free-play periods every day, three
observers wrote down in longhand for 15 min
"everything said" by a given child, noting to
whom the child directed each recorded verbaliza-
tion (to a teacher, a child, or in no observable
direction), and whether the child was playing
with the "shelf" materials (beads, puzzles, pound-
414
PRESCHOOL
ing benches) or with some other play material
in another preschool area. In addition, the
observers noted with a separate symbol any
verbalization that was a repeat by a child of an
immediately preceding teacher statement, and
any verbalization that was prompted by a teacher
with, "Say . . .", "You need to ask for . . .", or
the equivalent.
Measurement
Each 15-min verbalization sample for each
child each day was key-punched for computer
analysis in a manner identical to that described

in Hart and Risley (1974). A compound sen-
tence was defined as any two clauses, each
containing a verb, connected by a conjunction.
Each recorded compound sentence was computer-
coded according to its addressee (i.e., said to a
teacher, a child, or addressee not observable).
In addition, a special computer code was given
to any sentence marked by an observer as
prompted or imitative. All sentences meeting
the compound definition were coded as above,
not just those sentences that appeared to be the
result of incidental teaching. Similarly, all
teacher-prompted sentences were so coded, not
just compound sentences.
To analyze the variety of vocabulary used in
compound sentences, a separate count was made
of the numbers of different nouns and verbs in
compound sentences of the pattern taught on
incidental teaching occasions, i.e., "I want x so
I can y" (as, "I want a block, so I can play
with it.").
Whenever a child was absent, the observer
assigned to that child recorded a simultaneous
but independent 15-min sample with one of the
other observers. Absences averaged approxi-
mately one per child per month; there were no
systematic differences across conditions except
for one marked increase during several weeks
of bad weather between school days 50 to 60.
A total of 133 reliability samples were recorded,
one or more each day in each experimental
condition. The data from these samples were
processed through the computer in the same

way as the data taken by the prime observer. For
the 133 samples, total agreements between
prime observer and both second observers on
the occurrences (only) of the following categor-
ies, when divided by agreements plus disagree-
ments, yielded: 0.99 agreement on use of a
compound sentence, 0.99 agreement on the
direction of the compound sentence, 0.85
agreement on whether a statement was prompted
or imitative, and 0.96 agreement on whether a
compound sentence was in statement or question
form.
Procedures
I. Baseline: incidental teaching of labels. Be-
fore teaching compound sentences, in order to
ensure that the children had a variety of vocab-
ulary items for use in those sentences, incidental
teaching of labels for play materials was con-
ducted. Except for certain manipulative toys
indoors (the "shelf' play materials) and major
equipment and sand toys outdoors, all preschool
materials were placed beyond the reach but
within sight of the children, so that a child's
need for assistance in obtaining a material
would create an incidental teaching occasion.
On these occasions, the teachers learned from
the children's responses which children already
knew the names of the play materials and taught
those who did not. If a child labelled a play
material (as, "I want a truck.") before or as
soon as the teacher turned her attention to him,
no incidental teaching was conducted; the child
received the item requested and praise for his
language behavior. If a child pointed but did

not verbalize or verbalized without using a
label (as, "I want that."), the teacher cued, and
then prompted, if necessary, the labelling be-
havior. The sequence of cues and prompts used
in this incidental teaching of labels was identical
to that described in Hart and Risley (1974)
under "Use of Nouns".
II. Incidental teaching of compound sentences
directed to teachers. After 36 days of school, the
incidental teaching occasions occurring when
children needed assistance in obtaining preschool
materials became occasions for instruction in
use of compound sentences. The preschool
environment remained the same, except that
now when a child said, "I want a truck", the
teacher introduced incidental teaching. She
presented the cue, "Why?" or "What for?" and
then, in the manner described in Hart and Risley
(1974) under "Use of Compound Sentences",
prompted a complete sentence that stated a
reason, as "I want a truck so I can play with it.".
The teacher prompted the compound sentence
whenever a child failed to respond to her verbal
cue; as soon as he was responding to the cue,
"What for?", she began waiting for him to
verbalize a compound sentence in response to
her attention alone. She assisted the child,
handing him the requested material, immediately
upon his use of a compound sentence, and
praised his language behavior.

Initially, any reason given by a child within
a compound sentence resulted in teacher assist-
ance; after the forty-fourth day of school, how-
ever, the incidental teaching occasion was used
to teach specific and appropriate reasons for use
of materials. After a child used a compound
sentence, as "I want a block so I can play with
it", the teacher presented a variation of the cue,
saying, "Why do you really want it? What are
you going to do with it?". If the child responded
with a specification, "Build with it", the inciden-
tal teaching situation was terminated with his
receipt of the block; assistance was not delayed
by a teacher request for a complete sentence.
III. Incidental teaching of compound sen-
tences directed to children. Beginning on the
seventy-seventh day of school, the incidental
teaching situations arising when children needed
assistance in obtaining a play material were used
to instruct the children to address the previously
learned language behavior, a compound sen-
tence, to another child. This was done in order
to generalize this language behavior to persons
other than those who had directly taught it; since
the only other persons available in the preschool
environment were the children, they became the
recipients. The preschool environment remained
the same, except that now, when a child initiated
an occasional teaching situation by requesting a
play material from a teacher, she presented the
cue, "I'll give it to Bill (a child nearby), and you
ask him for it", or "Ask Bill to get it for you".
If the child hesitated, the teacher gave the

material to the second, nearby child and directed
that child's attention, and thus the availability
of his assistance, to the first child by saying,
"Bill, Andy (the first child) is going to ask you
for the ". If necessary, she then
prompted the first child by saying, "You need to
ask Bill for it". When the first child asked the
second child for the material, if he did not em-
ploy a compound sentence, the teacher delayed
the second child's assistance by asking him, "Did
Andy say it right?". The teacher then prompted
the first child to repeat his request to the second
child, and again asked whether the statement
had been said correctly as a compound sentence.
Then, the teacher prompted a compound sen-
tence from the first child if he still did not
produce one. In these situations, incidental
teaching was never conducted with the second,
assisting child; he was praised for getting the
material and handing it to the first child and
was never asked to produce a compound sentence
if he had to ask the teacher for the material in
order to hand it to the first child.
When a child used a compound sentence in
requesting a material from another child, the
teacher made certain that the second child
assisted the first child in obtaining the material,
she praised the first child for the correctness of
his language behavior, and she praised the
second child for assisting and for recognizing
and verifying (by saying, "Very good") the
correctness of the first child's language behavior.
As previously, teacher prompts were employed
to both first and second child whenever their
behavior appeared to necessitate them.

IV. Baseline. On Day 114 of school, the condi-
tions of the first 36 days of school were repro-
duced. Children continued to need assistance in
obtaining a play material, and, as in the previous
baseline, if a child labelled a play material before
416
PRESCHOOL
or as soon as the teacher turned her attention to
him, no incidental teaching was conducted. Any
form of language behavior that labelled a
material directed to any person resulted in
teacher assistance.
RESULTS
After incidental teaching, procedures were
used to instruct children in the use of compound
sentences directed to teachers; the use of such
sentences so directed increased markedly, while
the number of compound sentences directed to
children remained at baseline level. The lan-
guage behavior generalized to use with children
when incidental teaching procedures were used
to direct compound sentence usage to them: the
number of compound sentences to children
more than doubled. When systematic incidental
teaching was discontinued, a moderately high
rate of compound sentence usage to both

teachers and children was seen. Figure 1 shows
'nes' TO TEACHER
- TO CHILD
o II I ~ l I* '- I
PROMPTED
2a meve IMITATIONS
BASELINE ASK TEACHER ASK CHILD BASE
0 9 19 28 32
FOUR-DAY BLOCKS
Fig. 1. Top: average use of compound sentences per sample
hour directed by all 11 children to teachers
(dotted line) and to children (solid line). Bottom: average
number of statements for all 11 children that were
prompted (solid line) by a teacher statement and that were
imitations (dotted line) of an immediately preced-
ing teacher statement. Experimental conditions were: baseline,
blocks 1 to 9 (Days 1 to 36); incidental teach-
ing of compound sentences directed to teachers, blocks 10 to 19
(Days 37 to 76); incidental teaching of com-
pound sentences directed to children, blocks 20 to 28 (Days 77
to 112); and baseline, blocks 29 to 32 (Days
113 to 128). Each point represents four 15-min verbalization
samples (i.e., four consecutive days of obser-
vation).
12-
10.

an
6-
4'
2.
0
z
In
U,
w
IL
In
z
z
Am
U,I
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0
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417
a

the average use per sample hour of compound
sentences by all 11 children over the entire
school year. During baseline, compound sen-
tence usage among the 11 children averaged
2.6 per sample hour (range 1.1 to 4.2), with an
average of 1.4 compound sentences addressed to
children and 1.2 addressed to teachers. When
incidental teaching procedures were used to
teach compound sentence usage directed to
teachers, the number of compound sentences re-
corded as so directed rose to an average of 8.5
per hour (range 5.5 to 12.6). Compound sen-
tences directed to children remained at a re-
corded average of 1.5 per hour (range 0.8 to
3.3). When incidental teaching procedures were
used to generalize compound sentence usage to
children, the number of compound sentences
recorded as directed to children rose to an aver-
age of 5.9 per hour (range 3.1 to 8.6), while
compound sentences addressed to teachers de-
creased to an average of 4.1 per hour (range
2.5 to 6.7). After incidental teaching of com-
pound sentences was discontinued, the number
of compound sentences recorded per hour aver-
aged 4.5 directed to children (range 3.1 to 5.6)
and 3.8 directed to teachers (range 3.2 to 4.3).
Teacher prompts appeared to play a negli-
gible role in the children's continued use of
compound sentences. As presented in the lower
portion of Figure 1, teacher-prompted state-
ments of all types, and child imitations of
teacher statements, ranged from zero to 0.2
throughout the baseline period. When inciden-

tal teaching of compound sentences directed to
teachers was begun, prompted responses of all
types rose on the first four days to 1.3 per hour,
and then gradually decreased to an average of
0.7 per hour. Imitative responses were 0.3 per
hour during the first four days, decreasing to less
than 0.1 thereafter. When incidental teaching
for language generalization to children was
begun, prompted responses of all types again
rose, to 2.0 per hour on the first four days, but
decreased thereafter to an average of 0.7 per
hour. Imitative responses were less than 0.1
per hour throughout this condition. When in-
cidental teaching of compound sentences was
discontinued, prompted responses of all types
decreased to an average of 0.5 per sample hour,
while imitations remained at less than 0.1 per
sample hour.
Rather than producing stereotyped patterns,
incidental teaching of compound sentences led
to considerable variety of language among the
children, particularly toward the end of the
school year when children were addressing
compound sentences to other children. When
compound sentences of the incidentally taught
pattern, "I want an x (a noun such as 'block'),
so I can y (a verb such as 'build')", were exam-
ined for a variety of vocabulary, it was found
that, while only 20% of all the sentences con-
tained different verbs describing the reason for
use of a material after the auxiliary "can", 40%
of the sentences directed to children (i.e., those
recorded after 41 days of incidental teaching)
contained a different verb describing the reason

for using the material. Approximately one-
quarter of these were novel verbs not recorded
previously in a compound sentence. Similarly,
while only 36% of all the compound sentences
contained a different noun in the initial portion
labelling the material wanted, 60% of the com-
pound sentences directed to children later in the
school year contained different noun labels. Of
all these noun labels, 42% were unique usages,
recorded only once per child; 37% of all verbs
of reason for use were recorded only once per
child. Examination of the compound sentences
also showed an unprompted shift in sentence-
pattern when children addressed compound sen-
tences to other children: while the majority
(74%) of compound sentences addressed to
teachers were statements ("I want . . .", or
"Give me . . ."), the majority (56%) of com-
pound sentences addressed to children were
questions "Can I have. . . ?"). Only 18% of the
compound sentences addressed to teachers were
of this question form.
As in the Hart and Risley (1974) study, the
present study showed that incidental teaching
had no deleterious effects on children's use of
418
PRESCHOOL 419
preschool materials. During the 36 days of base-
line, an average of 1.17 children per day played

with the "shelf" materials that throughout the
year remained available to children without the
assistance of a teacher. When incidental teach-
ing was introduced, no child plaved with these
materials during the first seven consecutive days
of the availability of incidental teaching; there-
after, an average of 0.49 children per day used
these "shelf" materials during the remaining 85
school days.
DISCUSSION
This study replicates earlier studies (Hart and
Risley, 1968, 1974) in demonstrating the ef-
fectiveness of incidental teaching procedures for
increasing children's language skills and in sug-
gesting that children prefer play in areas in
which incidental teaching, with its immediate
teacher attention and assistance, is available.
The study adds evidence that specific instruction
and continual prompts are not necessary to gen-
erate variety of language or to maintain chil-
dren's use of incidentally taught language. Also,
the present study showed that incidentally
taught language can be readily generalized to
persons other than those who directly taught it.
When incidental teaching of compound sen-
tences was directed to use with other children
rather than to teachers, the children initially
appeared enthusiastic. "Ask me for it", said by
one child to another, appeared frequently in
observer recordings. After a time, however,
children seemed to tire of the "game"; "Ask
someone else" began to appear in observer
records, and teachers more frequently had to

intercede to ensure that a child received the as-
sistance requested. The initial high rate of com-
pound sentences to children, followed by a
sharp decline and an increase in compound sen-
tences addressed to teachers, is indicative that
the actual assistance in obtaining play materials
was provided to children by teachers. The in-
crease in compound sentence usage in the final
baseline period appeared to result from the
children's decision to help themselves. Observer
records increasingly showed instances of a child
saying, "I'm going to ask myself", and of a child
suggesting this to another child; the child was
then recorded as addressing a compound sen-
tence to himself. Such a situation might be
considered the terminal generalization, when
the individual states to himself a need and the
reason for the need, and then behaves accord-
ingly.
Incidental teaching thus appears to be an ef-
fective means of increasing children's language
skills through utilizing those occasions that
are child-selected for individualized instruction
and those materials and situations that occur
frequently and naturally within the child's
environment. Instruction may be provided by
teachers, parents, or other children. The process
of incidental teaching described may be, and
commonly is in most preschool programs, the
method by which most language learning is
achieved; the process is detailed here so that
teachers and parents may focus their efforts and
more effectively use these child-selected occa-
sions to help their children learn.

REFERENCES
Blank, M. The treatment of personality variables in
a preschool cognitive program. In J. D. Stanley
(Ed.), Preschool programs for the disadvantaged.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972.
Pp. 111-161.
Cazden, C. B. Some questions for research in early
childhood education. In J. D. Stanley (Ed.), Pre-
school programs for the disadvantaged. Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972.
Pp. 188-199.
Hart, B. M. and Risley, T. R. Establishing use of
descriptive adjectives in the spontaneous speech
of disadvantaged preschool children. Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 109-120.
Hart, B. M. and Risley, T. R. The use of preschool
materials for modifying the language of disad-
vantaged children. journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 1974, 1, 243-256.
Lovaas, 0. I. A program for the establishment of
speech in psychotic children. In J. K. Wing (Ed.),
Childhood autism. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1966.
McAfee, 0. An integrated approach to early child-
hood education. In J. D. Stanley (Ed.), Preschool
420 BETTY HART and TODD R. RISLEY

programs for the disadvantaged. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1972. Pp. 67-91.
Read, K. The nursery school. Philadelphia: W. B.
Saunders, 1966.
Risley, T. R. Spontaneous language and the pre-
school environment. In J. D. Stanley (Ed.), Pre-
school programs for the disadvantaged. Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972. Pp.
92-110.
Risley, T. R. and Wolf, M. Establishing functional
speech in echolalic children. Behaviour Research
and Therapy, 1967, 5, 73-88.
Weikart, D. P. Relationship of curriculum, teach-
ing, and learning in preschool education. In J. D.
Stanley (Ed.), Preschool programs for the disad-
vantaged. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1972. Pp. 22-66.
Received 16 May 1974.
(Final acceptance 25 April 1975.)
Research Brief #5
Incidental Teaching
Incidental teaching is a teaching strategy first
described by Hart and Risley (1968; 1982) in their
work with economically disadvantaged children.

Incidental teaching, as used by Hart and Risley, was
designed to increase the amount and complexity of
the language used in the children they worked with,
and also to increase generalization and spontaneous
use of language in these children. Hart and Risley
(1982) described the steps of incidental teaching as
follows: 1) Arrange the environment to contain
items of interest for the child 2) wait for the child to
initiate an interaction about an item of interest 3)
ask for more elaborate language or approximations
to speech and 4) provide the object for which the
child initiated (Fenske, Krantz, & McClannahan,
2001).
Incidental teaching has been a strategy of interest to
educators working with children with autism,
hoping it would address some of the problems with
generalization and lack of spontaneity and initiation
often seen in children with autism who have been
primarily exposed to very structured, adult-directed
teaching. McGee, Morrier and Daly (1999)
describe the benefits of incidental teaching as “the
advantages of a technical grounding in applied
behavior analysis with the added benefit that
accrues from delivering intervention in the context
of regular…activities” (p. 138).
Incidental teaching has been named as a primary
teaching strategy in seven single-subject design
studies of students with ASD and has been named
as part of a multi-component intervention in two
more studies. Three of the seven studies in which
incidental teaching was the primary strategy
modified the procedure to increase its effectiveness
with children with autism (Charlop-Christy &
Carpenter, 2000; McGee, Krantz, Mason, &

McClannahan, 1983; Schepis et al., 1982).
This group of studies has included 21 participants,
both male and female, ranging in age from 3-21. All
of the participants on the autism spectrum in these
studies had autistic disorder; one participant in a
multi-component incidental teaching study had both
autism and Down syndrome (Kroeger & Nelson,
2006). Incidental teaching has been studied in
special education settings, in residential settings, in
pull-out settings at school, and in the home
environment. One study (Charlop-Christy &
Carpenter, 2000) utilized parents as the intervention
agents; the rest of the studies used clinicians,
teachers, or residential staff.
Hart and Risley conceived incidental teaching as a
method for increasing the expressive oral language
of disadvantaged preschoolers. Autism researchers
have taken a broader approach with the strategy,
using it not only for expressive oral language
(Charlop-Christy & Carpenter, 2000; Farmer
Dougan, 1994; Kroeger & Nelson, 2006; McGee,
Almeida, Sulzer-Azaroff, & Feldman, 1992;
McGee, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1985; Miranda
Linne & Melin, 1992), but also to work on sign
language (Schepis et al., 1982), receptive language
(McGee et al., 1983) and reading words (McGee,
Krantz, & McClannahan, 1986)
Modifying the Strategy
Several researchers have noted characteristics of
autism that can potentially make incidental teaching
a less effective strategy for this population. These
characteristics can include lack of initiation (McGee

et al., 1983; Schepis et al., 1982), displaying severe
behavior problems when access to desired materials
is limited (McGee et al., 1983), and the need for
larger numbers of teaching opportunities (Charlop-
Christy & Carpenter, 2000). To address these
concerns, several studies have modified incidental
teaching in an attempt to make it more effective for
students with autism.
Initiation: True incidental teaching relies on the
student initiating a response, with the teacher then
interrupting the initiation to prompt the target skill.
The reproduction of this document is
encouraged. 3/15/07
This Research Brief is a publication of the
Professional Development in Autism (PDA) Center,
University of Washington, Seattle, WA. The PDA
Center is funded by the U.S. Department of
Education, Office of Special Education Programs
(H325G020003). Opinions expressed in this
document are those of the PDA Center and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. Department
of Education
However, as noted by McGee et al. (1983), children
with autism often either do not initiate or initiate
rarely. To address the problem of lack of initiation,
two of the earliest studies on incidental teaching
(McGee et al., 1983; Schepis et al., 1982), modified
the incidental teaching procedure to compensate for
this lack of initiation by prompting the participant in
the presence of a target item. McGee et al. also

used this modified technique to address the potential
that the participants with autism would display
severe problem behaviors if their access to desired
materials was limited.
Number of teaching trials: Children with autism
often may require large numbers of teaching trials
to learn a skill and as noted by Charlop-Christy and
Carpenter (2000), it can be difficult with incidental
teaching, which relies on naturally occurring
opportunities, to get in the number of teaching trials
that a child may need to learn a new skill. Charlop-
Christy and Carpenter introduced a modification of
incidental teaching designed to increase the efficacy
of incidental teaching by increasing the number of
teaching trials. In their study, they compared
traditional incidental teaching, modified incidental
teaching, and discrete trial in teaching target
phrases. In their traditional incidental teaching
procedure, the children received one naturally-
occurring trial of the target response each day. In
their modified version of incidental teaching, they
increased the number of trials by identifying two
naturally occurring situations for teaching the target
skill and, for each of these two situations, they
added two additional practice trials, increasing the
total number of trials per day to six. They then
compared this to the traditional incidental teaching
procedure, and to discrete trial training where the
children had 10 trials per day in a sit-down face-to-
face session. Charlop-Christy and Carpenter found
that, for their three boys with autism, none of the
learners learned the target phrases within the five
week treatment with traditional incidental teaching;
two of the children acquired the target phrases but
did not generalize the phrases with discrete trial

training,; and that all three children both learned and
generalized the phrases with their modified
incidental teaching.
Prerequisite Skills
Only one of the incidental teaching studies mentions
any prerequisite skills required by the participants:
this study (McGee et al., 1985), listed verbal
imitation skills as a prerequisite skill for the
students selected to learn expressive prepositions.
Although not mentioned as a prerequisite in the
other studies targeting oral expressive language
(Charlop-Christy & Carpenter, 2000; Farmer
Dougan, 1994; Kroeger & Nelson, 2006; McGee et
al., 1992; McGee et al., 1985; Miranda Linne &
Melin, 1992), the procedures in these studies
suggest that all of the participants had verbal
imitation abilities. McGee, Morrier, and Daly
(1999) in their description of the Walden Toddler
program, which utilizes incidental teaching,
describe the use of vigorous speech shaping
techniques during the incidental teaching in children
who are not verbally imitating.
An inherent prerequisite of incidental teaching as
elaborated by Hart and Risley (1982) is displaying
initiations; incidental teaching, as they describe it,
always starts with the child initiating. Thus, this
prerequisite can be assumed in the studies using
incidental teaching in its pure form; as mentioned
above, however, two studies (McGee et al., 1983;
Schepis et al., 1982) overcame this prerequisite by
prompting the participant if they did not initiate in
the presence of the target item.

Comparing Incidental Teaching to other teaching
strategies
Three studies have compared incidental to other
teaching strategies in children with autism. One,
noted above, compared traditional incidental
teaching, modified incidental teaching, and discrete
trial and found the best acquisition and
generalization with a modified incidental teaching
procedure (Charlop-Christy & Carpenter, 2000).
McGee, Krantz, and McClannahan (1985)compared
incidental teaching and traditional discrete trial in
teaching in teaching three boys with autism
expressive preposition usage. They found that there
was no significant difference in the acquisition or
retention of prepositions taught with the two
methods; traditional teaching resulted in slightly
shorter teaching sessions. However, they found that
incidental teaching promoted greater generalization
and more spontaneous use of prepositions. Miranda-
Linne and Melin (1992) compared incidental
teaching to traditional discrete trial in teaching two
boys with autism the expressive use of color
adjectives. These researchers found that discrete
trial was more efficient, producing faster acquisition.
Discrete trial also initially produced greater
generalization, but at follow-up probes a week later,
it was found that the adjectives learned by incidental
teaching were being retained and generalized more
than those learned by discrete trial. One of the two
children also used the adjectives learned through
incidental teaching more spontaneously at follow-
up; for the other child, no difference in spontaneous

usage was seen.
REFERENCES
Charlop-Christy, M. H., & Carpenter, M. H. (2000).
Modified incidental teaching sessions: A
procedure for parents to increase spontaneous
speech in their children with autism. Journal of
Positive Behavior Interventions, 2(2), 98-112.
Farmer Dougan, V. (1994). Increasing requests by
adults with developmental disabilities using
incidental teaching by peers. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 27(3), 533-544.
Fenske, E. C., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E.
(2001). Incidental teaching: A not-discrete-trial
teaching procedure. In Maurice, Catherine (Ed);
Green, Gina (Ed); et al (2001) Making a
difference: Behavioral intervention for autism
(pp. 75-82). Austin, TX: PRO-ED, Inc.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Establishing use of
descriptive adjectives in the spontaneous speech
of disadvantaged preschool children. Journal of
Applied Behavior Analysis, 1, 109-120.
Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1982). How to use
incidental teaching for elaborating language.
Austin, TX: Pro-Ed.
Kroeger, K. A., & Nelson, W. M. (2006). A
language programme to increase the verbal

production fo a child dually diagnosed with
Down syndrome and autism. Journal of
Intellectual Disability Research, 50, 101-108.
McGee, G. G., Almeida, M., Sulzer-Azaroff, B., &
Feldman, R. S. (1992). Promoting reciprocal
interactions via peer incidental teaching. Journal
of Applied Behavior Analysis, 25(1), 117-126.
McGee, G. G., Krantz, P. J., Mason, D., &
McClannahan, L. E. (1983). A modified
incidental-teaching procedure for autistic youth:
Acquisition and generalization of receptive
object labels. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 16(3), 329-338.
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.
McGee, G. G., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E.
(1986). An extension of incidental teaching
procedures to reading instruction for autistic
children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
19(2), 147-157.
McGee, G. G., Morrier, M. J., & Daly, T. (1999). An
incidental teaching approach to early
intervention for toddlers with autism. Journal of
the Association for Persons with Severe
Handicaps, 24(3), 133-146.
Miranda Linne, F., & Melin, L. (1992). Acquisition,
generalization, and spontaneous use of color

adjectives: A comparison of incidental teaching
and traditional discrete-trial procedures for
children with autism
Research in Developmental Disabilities, 13(3),
191-210.
Schepis, M. M., Reid, D. H., Fitzgerald, J. R., Faw,
G., D., Van Den Pol, R. A., & Welty, P. A.
(1982). A program for increasing manual signing
by autistic and profoundly retarded youth within
the daily environment. Journal of Applied
Behavior Analysis, 15(3), 363-379.
See more research briefs at the PDA Center web-
site: http://depts.washington.edu/pdacent/
Academic Intervention-Incidental Teaching Page | 1
Academic Intervention
Incidental Teaching
Many teachers and parents struggle with how to best teach
preacademic and academic skills to young students with autism
spectrum disorders (ASD) and ensure that the skills generalize
to a variety of settings, people, and materials. Incidental
teaching is a strategy that can be used to address these issues. It
applies methods of applied behavior analysis to preacademic
skills taught in typical preschool or home settings.
This topic introduces you to how you can teach preacademic
skills such as colors, size, and shape to children with ASD in
typical settings, within the daily routines. Specifically, you will
learn how to apply the strategy and develop data collection

methods, receive suggestions for materials to teach adjectives,
read a case study, find the answers to frequently asked
questions, and take a short quiz.
What is Incidental Teaching?
Incidental teaching involves structuring and sequencing
educational objectives so that they occur within ongoing,
typical activities and take advantage of student interests and
motivation (McGee, Daly, & Jacobs, 1994). Incidental teaching
uses strategies from the field of applied behavior analysis
(ABA) to present learning objectives within typical early
childhood activities, instead of sitting face to face with the
child at a table in a clinical setting. Teachers arrange the
environment by placing preferred toys and activities of each
student within sight, but not within reach, to encourage the
student to initiate teaching sessions based on preplanned
learning objectives. Once the child shows an interest in the
materials by gesturing or requesting an item or activity, the
teacher prompts an elaboration on the initiation. The child
subsequently obtains the desired item upon generating the
elaboration. For example, a student may say, “barn,” to request
a toy barn, followed by the teacher’s question, “what color
barn?” When the student says, “red barn,” she is allowed to play
with the barn for a couple of minutes. A nonverbal student
might work on the skill of asking for help using a gesture. For
example, the teacher could place the child’s favorite toy, a
dump truck, in a plastic container that the child could not open.
Once the child attempts to open the box, the teacher physically
prompt him to hand the box to her for help.
There are several advantages to incidental teaching. First, it is
thought that teaching within the context of typical preschool
activities promotes generalization of skills (McGee, Morrier, &
Daly, 1999). In addition, social initiations, a deficit of many
children with ASD, are an integral part of incidental teaching.
The basis for incidental teaching lies in the student initiating a
teaching session. Lessons involve interactions in which the
child expresses interest and the adult responds with prompts and

praise.
Families are also able to integrate incidental teaching into
typical daily routines by finding ways to encourage their
children to elaborate during everyday activities (e.g., dinner
time, outside play, bed time). For example, Johnna’s mother
wants to teach her to be able to name body parts. Initially, she
targets this skill during bath time, an activity Johnna enjoys, by
getting the washcloth soapy and waiting for Johnna to indicate
(e.g., pointing, pulling mom’s hand toward her) what part she
wants washed. Her mother then prompts her to repeat the name
of that part (e.g., “wash arm”).
Steps
The following are essential steps in carrying out incidental
teaching:
1. The teacher or parent chooses an educational objective.
Example:Labeling the letters of the alphabet.
2. The adult arranges the natural environment to promote
student motivation and interest in the materials related to
teaching the objective. For example, the child can see the
materials, but does not have access to them, or the adult sees
the child playing with a toy and gently takes the toy and plays
with it.
Example: Joshua enjoys puzzles. His teacher, Miss May, finds a
puzzle with the letters of the alphabet. During center time while
Joshua is working on puzzles, Miss May puts the puzzle on the
table with the letters in a clear container that Joshua is unable
to open.
3. The child shows interest in the materials through
verbalization or gesture, thus initiating the teaching session.
Example:Joshua points to the box and says, “letters.”
4. The adult encourages the child to elaborate on his or her

initiation, based on the student’s developmental level. If the
adult does not understand what item or activity the child wants,
the adult first asks, “What do you want?” Ways to encourage
elaborated responses include:
· Ask a question (e.g., “What color car do you want?” or,
“Where is the car?”)
· Make a gesture, sound, or word (e.g., point to the blue car)
· Model the desired response (e.g., “blue car”)
Example: Miss May opens the box and holds up the letter R,
asking, “What letter do you want?”
5. If the child responds correctly to the prompt, the adult
provides specific praise and gives the child brief access to the
desired materials.
Example: Joshua says, “Letter R,” so Miss May says, “That’s
right! It’s the letter R!,” and allows him to put the letter in the
puzzle.
6. If the child does not respond or responds incorrectly, the
adult provides up to three more prompts, such as providing the
necessary words. Once the child responds correctly, he or she
receives specific praise and brief access to the materials.
Example: Joshua repeats, “Letter,” so Miss May says, “Letter
R.” Joshua repeats, “Letter R.” Miss May says, “Right, that’s
R!,” and allows him to put the letter in the puzzle.
7. The adult “takes a turn” with the materials (i.e., replaces
them on the shelf or plays with them, or, says, “I want the green
car” and picks up the green car), The steps begin again.
Example: Miss May closes the box again and waits for Joshua to
say, “Letter,” or point to the box.
The incidental teaching session should end with success (i.e.,
child responds correctly and receives access tot he materials).
The session should be brief and end once the child loses
interest.

See Wetherby and Prizant’s (1989) “communicative temptations
for a communication assessment” and Susan Boswell’s
suggestions for “communication incentives” at
http://www.teacch.com/teacchco.htm for more ideas on how to
elicit communicative initiations.
Evaluation
To ensure that generalization takes place, evaluation should
take place not only during teaching sessions, but also within
other settings, with all those with whom the child
communicates, and with a wide range of instructional materials.
Data should be collected frequently, weekly at minimum, to
make certain that the child is making progress. In some
situations it would be helpful to collect data within each
teaching session. If the data do not show improvement, another
strategy should be considered or the method of delivery should
be assessed to judge if changes are necessary.
Data Collection: Initial Lessons
When assessing a child’s skills, data should not be collected in
the middle of a teaching session or the adult will be uncertain if
the student truly learned the objectives or is simply displaying
short-term memory skills. Instead, probe data should be used
(McGee, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1985). Whereby data
collection takes place before a teaching session begins and in
the setting in which prior teaching has taken place. The order of
presentation of the materials should be random, so the adult can
be sure that the child has not simply learned a pattern of
responding. The child may receive reinforcement (e.g., praise,
edibles), but it should not be connected to the correctness of
responses (e.g., provide praise for following directions). When
collecting probe data, unlike in the middle of a teaching session
when the adult would wait for the child to initiate the session by
showing interest in an item with a gesture or verbalization, the
adult initiates the data collection session by asking the child
elaboration questions (e.g., “where is the juice?” might be asked
to check for use of prepositions).
Correct responses occur when the child uses a correct

elaboration spontaneously or within approximately 5 seconds of
the adult’s question (McGee, Krantz, & McClannahan, 1985).
For example, the child sees the cookies on the shelf and says, “I
want the chocolate cookie.” The following exchanges would
also be recorded as a correct response:
Example 1:
Adult: “Where is the juice?”
Child: “In the cup.” “On the table.”
Example 2:
Adult: “What shape are the cookies?”
Child: (2-second pause) “Square cookie.”
Errors are those exchanges in which the child does not respond,
responds more than approximately 5 seconds after the adult’s
question, or responds incorrectly (e.g., asks for a circle cookie
when the cookies are squares). In the case of an error during
data collection, the adult would not prompt a correct response
and the child would not receive the item. It is important to keep
the data collection sessions short to prevent frustration.
The following data collection sheet is useful in collecting probe
data.
Data Collection: Checking for Generalization
Few skills are useful if children do not generalize their use to
settings, materials, and communicative partners other than those
in which the skills were initially taught. In addition to
collecting data at the beginning of teaching sessions, therefore,
it is essential also to collect data on the child’s generalization
of the skills. Teaching and testing for generalization must be
planned.
Example: Asa was initially taught colors through the use of toy
trains. He previously learned how to label favorite toys and
would initiate sessions by asking for “train” at free play. His
teacher, Ms. Alexander, then taught him to label the colors of
train cars by asking, “what color car?” until he consistently
asked for “yellow train car.” To promote generalization of
expressive color labeling, Ms. Alexander set up sessions using

different colors of gummy bears, toy cars, blocks, and crayons.
Starting with gummy bears, Asa’s favorite candy, Ms.
Alexander offered them as an after lunch snack. In order to
teach color labels, when Asa said, “Gummy bear, please,” Ms.
Alexander asked, “What color?” Once Asa was consistently
asking for, “Blue gummy bear,” the teacher moved on to
working on the same skill at art time, withholding paints and
crayons until Asa asked for them by saying, “Purple paint."
Materials to teach adjective
Adjective use is one example of incidental teaching that is
frequently implemented in schools and home settings. The
following are some ideas for materials to use to teach
adjectives. Incidental teaching may also be used to teach such
objectives as nouns, verbs, pronouns, and initiating and
sustaining conversations.
Colors
Shapes
Size
Candy
Rainbow-colored cookies
Toy train cars
Blocks
Painting
Blocks
Crackers
Cookies
Puzzle pieces
Shape lotto
Balls
Toy cars and trucks
Bear manipulatives
Pieces of favorite foods
Blocks
Case Study
Eli is a 4 year-old student with pervasive developmental

disorder- not otherwise specified (PDD-NOS). He has a limited
functional vocabulary; however, he often recites scenes from
favorite storybooks and movies. He often engages in echolalia
(i.e., immediately repeats words and phrases said by others). He
has previously learned to request preferred foods and toys by
using single words. His parents and teacher, Ms. Markin, want
him to use color adjectives and targeted the color yellow, his
favorite color cookie (vanilla wafers). A recent teaching session
went as follows during snack time:
Ms. Markin: (holding bag of cookies, eats one)
Eli: (reaching for cookie) “Cookie”
Ms. Markin: “What color cookie do you want?”
Eli: (reaches for cookie again)
Ms. Markin: (modeling) “Yellow cookie”
Eli: “Yellow cookie”
Ms. Markin: (gives Eli the cookie) “Yes, that’s a yellow cookie.
Great!”
The next three trials went similarly with Ms. Markin providing
a prompt. The following trial went as follows:
Ms. Markin: (holding bag of cookies, eats one)
Eli: (reaching for cookie) “Yellow cookie”
Ms. Markin: (gives Eli a cookie) “Wonderful! You asked for the
yellow cookie.”
Once Eli could consistently request yellow cookies without
prompts, Ms. Markin and his parents added another color, again
finding items that were motivating to him. For example they
began teaching brown with chocolate cookies and red and blue
with favorite toy cars.
Quiz
Top of Form
1. Incidental teaching sessions must take place in a clinical
setting, with the teacher and student seated face-to-face at a
table.
True
False

2. Incidental teaching applies strategies of applied behavior
analysis (ABA) within typical activities.
True
False
3. Incidental teaching requires that teaching sessions be
designed around students’ interests.
True
False
4. Who initiates incidental teaching sessions?
A. Teacher
B. Student
C. Administrator
5. The student can show an interest in the materials by:
A. Speaking
B. Walking out of the room
C. Gesturing
D. A and C
E. A and B
Bottom of Form

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