Unobtrusive Training: A Home-Centered Model for Communication Training

Abstract

Severely developmentally delayed children progress best when their families are involved in their language training. However, training in the home can disrupt natural family interactions and cause stress. Ideally, home training should be unobtrusive, i.e., use natural situations, responses, and consequences to teach new responses in the home. Unobtrusive training consists of two components, environmental manipulations and teaching interactions, and is conducted in brief one-trial interactions to decrease interruption of family routines. Environmental manipulations set the training context and increase the opportunities for language development in the home. Teaching interactions establish the response and include three components: reinforcement, modeling, and incidental teaching. Reinforcement involves praising and reinforcing the child's use of communication to increase rate of responses. Modeling involves demonstration of appropriate responses in context but without direct attempts to elicit the response. Incidental teaching prompts and reinforces responses in context. All three procedures are characterized by simplicity (ease of implementation), normality (inconspicuous application), and generality (applicability to children with different handicapping conditions and levels of responding).