Chapter 5 Teaching Terms Review

Task analysis

A close examination of a task and breaking it down into teachable steps. This is primarily for chained behaviors

Discrete Teaching Trial

A concise and consistent instruction or question, the child's response, and a specific consequence (which is determined by how the child responds).

Skill sequence

A listing of related skills arranged from simple to more difficult that are taught separately, in order, over a predetermined period (ex. Using coins to make a purchase, telling time).

Discriminative Stimulus

A relevant aspect of a task in the presence of which a particular behavior is frequently reinforced (if "this" is happening, I should do "this" if I want a chance at being reinforced. The first "this" is the discriminative stimulus!) Examples are varied: a particular item/setting in the environment, teacher request, a particular time of day, an individual's physical state, etc.

Instructional cue or request

A signal from the teacher that the instruction is beginning and the target behavior is expected. Initiates instruction. They should be planned in advance.

Structured work/activity system

A strategy that uses schedules and specifically structured activities to help students understand the beginning, end, and content of the task they are expected to complete.

Chained behavior

A target skill that consists of many behaviors strung together in a sequence (ex. Sweeping the floor, playing a board gam, operating an electronic device).

Discrete behavior

A target skill that involves a single, isolated response with an obvious beginning and end (ex. Pronouncing a word, identifying a number, greeting another by name).

Fluency

At this stage, the student can perform the skill more fluently and we are focusing on getting him to do it more quickly or for longer periods of time. So they are improving accuracy, speed, and perhaps quality.

Embedded instruction

inserting teaching trials into ongoing schedules (daily routines etc) without breaking the flow of the routine or the ongoing activity (i.e. activity based, such as learning to set a table, throw a ball, deliver newspapers). Capitalizes on all available instructional time during the school day.

Social narrative

Short accounts of activities that may be problematic for students. They use simple words and sometimes pictures, depicting what to do in order to reach a positive outcome rather than what not to do. They are written in first person-from the student's perspective and are read frequently to or by the student before engaging in the difficult task/situation.

Acquisition

Student is acquiring new skills and we'd expect an accuracy ranging from about 0%-60% of steps performed correctly. We're simply introducing the new skill and getting the student started on it.

Maintenance

Students can perform the skill independently, although not perfectly. They need less supervision and only occasional "checking" by the teacher.

Accommodations

The IEP team decides what adjustments the student needs to enable him to access curriculum content or demonstrate learning without significantly changing the curriculum goals or the performance criteria (examples: extra time, adapted computer mouse, preferential seating)

Generalization

The goal here is to be able to use wherever and whenever it is needed.

Universal Design

The idea here is to create lessons that have a wide variety of alternative ways to access materials, content, and different ways to show what you know as well. It is a concept that came from architecture (think curb cuts and ramps)—the idea is that simple changes may help people with disabilities but "typical" people will also benefit.

Teaching

The process of shifting the control from teacher-supplied stimuli to natural task stimuli. The goal is for the student to respond to some sort of natural cue instead of to something the teacher does or says.

Consequence teaching strategies

These are the techniques you use during the lesson to shape the students' performance, such as positive reinforcement, opportunities to practice, immediate corrective feedback and using the 4-1 rule of positives to corrective feedback

Antecedent teaching strategies

These are the things you have in place ahead of time, such as the materials, content, directions, teaching arrangement, methods to engage, accommodations, modifications, etc.

Modifications

These decisions are also documented in the IEP. They refer to changes in instruction and/or expectations that DO alter the curriculum goals and performance criteria.

Visual schedules

This tool uses real objects, tangible symbols, picture symbols, or words (depending on the student's need) to represent regularly scheduled events during the school day. The schedules can be between-task (all day) or within-task (a single activity)

Probe

Collecting data on a specific skill at scheduled intervals rather than continuously or haphazardly (i.e., a quick "test" to see if student can perform the task independently)

Chaining

An instructional procedure that reinforces individual responses in sequence, forming a complex behavior. The procedure may use forward chaining (beginning by teaching the first step and building up the chain), backward chaining (beginning instruction with the last step of the chain and working down the steps) or total task (teaching each step of the chain every time).

Prompting

An antecedent strategy that gets responses going and prevents errors.

Error

An incorrect response, problem behavior, or non-response provided during an instructional sequence

Adaptations

Broad term that includes both accommodations and modifications-teachers "adapt" all the time during instruction when they see the need

Video modeling

Capitalizes on observational learning through use of brief videos of teacher or student performing the targeted skill.

Massed trial teaching

Learning opportunities are clustered and taught in a condensed manner with short intervals in between. More successful during acquisition stage of learning.

Distributed trial teaching

More likely to be effective during the generalization stage; teaching trials are distributed over time with minutes or hours between trials. More likely to be used in contextualized environments.

Learning

Process of understanding how to behave (student response) in the presence of specific and changing signals or stimuli (discriminative stimuli) in the environment.

Probe

Relate to choice-making opportunities and can also be self-initiated. Fosters self-determination. Similar to but different from a reinforcer.