Life skills are essential for allowing children to navigate the world successfully as they grow. These skills, which include everything from basic chores to critical thinking, can sometimes be challenging to teach through traditional methods.
But a little creativity can transform any activity into an engaging learning opportunity. By finding ways to connect learning skills to regular activities and the child's interests, you can make learning enjoyable and effective. Then increase the engagement even further by transforming basic activities into games and competitions!
Over the past two weeks, we held our own ABA Olympics alongside the Summer Olympic Games. Our daily challenges highlighted the skills and milestones we work toward in ABA. We assigned staff and clients to 5 teams and prepared our score sheets. The competition was underway!
Teams earned points for a different challenge each day. These challenges included giving and responding to "mands" (requests), transitioning smoothly between activities, joining in gross motor activities such as the long jump and balance beam, engaging in parallel and cooperative play, and more.
These daily challenges were a lot of fun. Our clients and staff embraced the friendly competition. Motivation and engagement were high.
But it wasn't just for fun. There was serious learning being accomplished.
More Than Just for Fun: Naturalistic Teaching
Naturalistic teaching, also known as natural environment training (NET), teaches skills in the context of natural environments and daily routines. Rather than using repetitive drills and highly controlled settings, naturalistic teaching integrates learning opportunities into typical activities and interactions.
Our Olympics challenges made full use of naturalistic teaching.
Some examples of NET from our Olympic events:
Discussing numbers, counting, and math while doing the long jump, running laps, and walking the balance beam
Tacting (labeling) colors when looking at the flags of different countries
Practicing waiting while going from one event to the next
Sorting items by color or size after play
Sharing a ball by taking turns
Talking about the different animals in a book while reading
At Partners in Autism, we use naturalistic teaching whenever possible. It's always exciting to see how creative our behavior technicians can be when finding ways to tie activities and interests to learning.
How do we build Naturalistic Teaching moments?
Follow the Child’s Lead
We involve each child's interests, promoting engagement and motivation.
Functional Skills
We focus on teaching skills that will directly enhance each child's independence, agency, and quality of life. Children can tell when skills have real meaning, and this increases their interest in learning.
Embedded and Incidental Learning
We teach skills during regular activities, such as practicing counting while setting the table or practicing colors during playtime. We also take advantage of opportunities as they arise. For example, if a child expresses interest in a toy, we can use this opportunity to practice requesting or labeling skills.
Generalization
We create teachable moments across a variety of environments in our building using our living room, kitchen, sensory-arts area, gross motor room, classroom, and more. This helps each child apply their developing skills in different contexts. Skills are more useful when they can be applied broadly.
Benefits of Naturalistic Teaching
Enhanced Motivation
Children are more engaged and motivated when learning is based on their interests and activities.
More Meaningful Learning
Teaching skills in the context of real-life activities makes them more relevant and functional.
Improved Generalization
Skills learned in natural contexts are more likely to transfer to other situations and environments.
More Positive Interactions
Reducing the need for rigid, highly-structured sessions reduces stress and increases positive, enjoyable interactions.
How can you can build similar naturalistic teaching experiences into your child's day?
Use Your Child's Interests
Observe your child's interests and use these as a basis for learning opportunities.
Plan Connections
List skills and knowledge that your child is currently working on. Then jot down ideas for ways to practice these in different settings or ways to tie these skills to their interests. As an example, we've created this chart for practicing early literacy skills across different environments. As you get more comfortable looking for opportunities to embed learning, you'll become more spontaneous and flexible, but it is best to begin with a pre-planned list of connections.
Use Natural Reinforcements
Provide immediate and relevant reinforcers. Show the value of what your child is learning in ways that are meaningful to them. The more relevant an activity feels to a child, the more engaged they will likely be.
Be Flexible
Gather ideas from others but adapt your strategies to your child's responses. Every child learns differently, and that's ok. Also remember that what your child finds engaging will change over time - both as short term fluctuations and long term growth.
Then once you and your child are comfortable with this type of teaching as a consistent part of your activities and routines, turn certain moments into challenges. Let them compete against peers or against their own "top score." This adds to the motivation and engagement already generated by naturalistic teaching. It's also fun and gives everyone a natural opportunity to celebrate growth.
Naturalistic Teaching Resources for You!
We hope you feel empowered to use naturalistic teaching as a dynamic and effective way to help your child learn essential skills in a way that is engaging, meaningful, and applicable to everyday life. Have questions? Let us know!
Be inspired by these examples of ways to integrate early literacy skills across a variety of environments:
