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ontaneous responses to cues in the real world (Hart & Risley, 1975).
It is in this natural environment where children learn to generalize the skills taught and transfer them to other settings and people; therefore, it is a procedure that is effective (Hart and Risley, 1975). Training in settings that are natural, increases the amount of instruction that can be provided to autistic children (McGee, Krantz, Mason, & McClannahan, 1983). Incidental teaching has an appropriate blend of systematic instruction and normalized environment for the child to learn (McGee, Morrier, & Daly, 1999). In addition, the procedure encourages children to make their own choices and aids social initiation since the initiations are being rewarded (McGee et al., 1999).
Incidental Teaching and Verbal Communication
Hart and Risley (1975) stated that the procedure is most common in a pre-school setting, since that is when most of the language is achieved. McGee and Daly (2007) developed a study that evaluated incidental teaching with three preschool aged boys with autism to promote the use of age appropriate social phrases. The study taught the social phrases, “All right” and “You know what?” with prompt fading, and transfer across teachings and settings (McGee & Daly 2007). The results of the study illustrated that the three young boys with ASD acquired the social phrases and were able to generalize the social phrases across different situations (McGee & Daly 2007).
A benefit of incidental teaching is that teachers, parents, or peers can do the instructions, and this influences the generalization of the skills taught, which ultimately improves the child’s learning and quality of life (Hart &Risley, 1975). Incidental teaching can be done without disrupting in the child’s routine, so it is easily done in many environments (McGee et al., 1999). The ability to transfer instructions across different people and settings, allows for more opportunities for the child to maintain the skills taught, and to learn more skills. It is always stated that the more practice one has, the better he/she gets in a particular area of skill, and this is the same for children with ASD. The more opportunities they have to practice, the better they will get in their skills, which will overall effect their social life and quality of life.
Hart and Risley (1975) believe that pre-school is the best age to start incidental teaching; however, it is best to start as early as possible. Since parents can instruct incidental teaching, it could be beneficial to start in a natural home environment. McGee, Morrier, and Daly (1999) completed a study where the participants were toddlers instead of preschool-aged children, and there was a home-based component. The study included both a natural environment of a childcare center and the home of the child (McGee et al., 1999). The study consisted 28 children with ASD who participated in the program for at least months with more than thirty hours a week of planned early intervention through a combination of home based program and a center-based program (McGee et al., 1999). The parents had ten additional hours of hands-on training so they can implement the procedure at home. The study found that, by the time the children left the program to go to preschool, 82% of the toddlers with ASD were verbalizing meaningful words, so majority had functional language going into preschool (McGee et al., 1999).
Incidental teaching is a procedure that meets the needs for an inc
