Stimulus control (defined as a stimulus that is reliably associated with reinforcement given a certain response, or in less technical terms, a stimulus which “signals” that reinforcement is available given a certain response). Stimulus control is acquired through discrimination training, prompting and prompt fading and procedures for remediating stimulus overselectivity.
Motivational operations (defined as operations giving stimuli reinforcing properties). For example, when teaching a child conversational skills, topics the child is highly interested in are selected; when teaching independent puzzle completion, puzzles depicting characters of interest to the child are chosen.
Generalisation (acquisition of skills not specifically taught, use of acquired skills in novel situations, novel settings or across novel people, and maintaining learned skills). Generalisation is achieved through, for example, working in different settings, using varied stimuli and presenters, and thinning reinforcement schedules and utilising naturally occurring reinforcers.
Teaching Methods.
All aspects of teaching includes identifying skills to be taught, performing task analyses, objectively defining target behaviours, identifying materials to be used during teaching (e.g., objects from the child’s daily routine such as a toothbrush), identifying reinforcers and performing operations to motivate the child for learning, and planning a prompting and prompt fading strategy.
Discrete trial teaching is carried out by presenting the child with the appropriate instruction and teaching material for the target behaviour, prompting the target behaviour if necessary and by reinforcing the child for emitting the target response. Such teaching trials are repeated until mastery is achieved. Discrete trial teaching can be used to teach a wide variety of skills, such as language and communication, play, social skills, self-help skills, and academic skills (Lovaas et al., 1981).
Natural Environment Teaching is another important method used. It focuses on teaching behaviours in the situation they naturally occur. For example, during mealtime, the child is reinforced for sitting nicely, or the child is instructed how to use a knife and fork appropriately; before going outside the child practices how to tie his/her shoe laces. Many skills, however, such as tying shoes may be difficult to learn from natural environment teaching because the skill is very complicated and few learning opportunities occur naturally over the course of the day. Consequently, natural environment teaching is often combined with discrete trial teaching, where a particular skill (e.g., shoe tying) can be broken down into smaller components and practiced repeatedly until mastered. During natural environment teaching prompt and prompt fading techniques are central, so is the reinforcement of successive approximations to the target behaviour (shaping). Whenever possible the reinforcer is the consequence that naturally follows the target behaviour such as going outside to perform a desired activity after practicing tying shoes.
Incidental Teaching (Hart, 1982; Hart & Risley, 1975) is another central teaching method used to teach language and communication. The teaching environment is structured to facilitate spontaneous initiations on the part of the child (e.g., the child’s favourite toy is clearly visible to the child but out of his/her reach). The teacher waits for the child to initiate an interaction about the object of interest. For example, depending on the child’s language competence the child responds by pointing, approximation to speech, words, complete sentences, and/or eye contact. Next the teacher prompts a more elaborate communicative response. For example, if the child responds by labelling the desired object, the teacher may prompt the child to point to the object while labelling it. When the child emits the prompted response s/he receives the desired object which acts as a reinforcer.
Task analyses and chaining is used to break down complex behaviours (e.g. toy play and language) into smaller units that can be reliably measured and more easily taught. For example when teaching a child to play with a train set, the behavioural components identified as a result of the task analysis could be: (1) attaching two pieces of track together; (2) adding subsequent pieces of track one by one; (3) placing the train on the track; (4) pushing the train around the track; (5) saying ‘choo choo’. In teaching language the behavioural components are identified, and teaching begins with the most basic behavioural components such as vocal imitation of sounds. These individual behaviours would then be systematically taught and chained together to make one complex behaviour, using backward or forward chaining techniques.
Functional Behaviour Assessment is used to investigate functional relationships between aberrant behaviour and specific environmental events so that effective interventions could be designed. Functional behaviour assessment involved, for example, observing specific incidences of the aberrant behaviour and its antecedent and consequent events, and/or interviewing the caregivers (Durand, 2002 ; O’Neill, Horner, Albin, Sprague, Storey, & Newton, 1997).
Reinforcement Techniques to Reduce Inappropriate Behaviour includes Differential Reinforcement of Other behaviour (DRO). In DRO a reinforcer is delivered if inappropriate behaviour does occur during a defined time interval, for example a highly desired toy is given if a child does not throw objects during a two minute interval. Sometimes it is more beneficial to reinforce a behaviour that is incompatible with the inappropriate behaviour (Differential Reinforcement of Incompatible behaviour, DRI). For example, a child is reinforced for threading beads instead of biting his/her fingernails. In other situations it is desirable to reinforce a behaviour that serves as an alternative to the inappropriate behaviour (Differential Reinforcement of Alternative behaviour, DRA). For example, a child is prompted to say “biscuit” instead of tantrumming to obtain the biscuit. All of these methods include extinction of inappropriate behaviour (defined as withholding a reinforcer for a previously reinforced response).These principles and teaching methods are described in further detail elsewhere e.g.,Catania, 1998;Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 1987).
Curriculum
Beginning Programmes are taught to develop important pre-requisite skills in the areas of attention, communication, and play. This early curriculum included: sitting in a chair; responding to simple instructions such as “come here” and “wave bye-bye”; matching identical objects; imitating gross motor actions or imitating actions with objects; imitating sounds and words; identifying and naming objects; playing independently with toys; and basic interactive skills such as rolling a ball to and from an adult.
Intermediate Programmes includes further language training such as identification and naming of abstract concepts including colours, prepositions, pronouns and emotions; parallel play; turn taking; imitating sentences; early academic skills such as identifying letters and numbers, drawing imitation and tracing; and self help skills such as dressing and undressing, toilet training, drinking from an open cup and increasing the range of foods and drink taken.
Advanced Programmes addresses social language such as conversation and asking questions, advanced pretend play and co-operative play, social-emotional skills such as theory of mind, advanced academic skills, observational learning and learning in the classroom environment.