Over the last dew days you have learned about creating opportunities to teach, waiting for the correct response, and giving prompts if you child isn’t picking up on the sublet hints. In our final blog series of embedded teaching, we aim to teach you on how to use positive consequences or natural actions to encourage appropriate behavior. Often, we call this positive reinforcement. We don’t always have to use extrinsic or outside rewards like candy, screen time, or tokens. Instead, we can more natural reinforcers to encourage your children to appropriately communicate.

For example, maybe, you are trying to teach your child to use “please” when they ask for items they want. First, you create and wait, by pointing to a toy that is out of your child’s reach. You count in your head for at least 3 seconds, and then you remind or prompt your child what they need to do. This can be accomplished by saying “Remember to say please when you ask your mom or dad for toys.” Once your child states, “Can I have the toy, please?” Immediately acknowledge this communication and reinforce this by giving the child the toy quickly. Always try to associate this this natural, positive consequence with your affirmation, encouragement, and acknowledgement. Natural reinforcers may include verbal praise, such as, “Wow! I’m so proud you are using manners!” Always try to very specific when giving acknowledgement to your child. This allows your child to learn what they did correctly and be motivated to repeat the behavior again.

Some children may struggle communicating vocally, and that’s okay. We can still use embedded teaching for them to learn appropriate ways to meet their needs. If your child is nonverbal (that is, does not talk to communicate his/her needs), we may want to teach them to point to items they may need. If a toy is out of reach, you would still create and wait  and prompt(remind) the child to point to what they need. Once your child points or you help them point to what they want, you can reinforce their nonverbal communication with giving them the toy. Remember to always tell your child what they did correctly “Nice pointing to what you needed!” to encourage them to continue to point to items.

Embedded teaching (or sometimes called naturalistic or incidental teaching) is an excellent technique that our faculty and graduate clinicians use all the time at the Husky ABA clinic. We capitalize on learning opportunities in real-world contexts to teach your child to communicate appropriately. Embedded teaching is a fantastic way to teach new behaviors in your everyday life!

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