Discrete Trial Teaching is an educational strategy based on the principles of applied behavior analysis. Discrete Trial Teaching involves breaking skills down into smaller components and teaching those smaller sub-skills individually. Repeated practice of skills is conducted, and teachers may incorporate prompting procedures as necessary. Correct responses are followed by reinforcement procedures to facilitate the learning process
Children with autism typically do not learn from their environment spontaneously, and therefore, may need extra cues or explicit instruction of skills that may come naturally to typically developing peers. Most need highly structured, repetitive instruction that requires them to engage actively with the environment in order to acquire new skills. Discrete Trial Teaching's consistent, predictable nature makes it a popular choice for working with children with autism. Built in reinforcement in a discrete trial session provides children with autism added motivation for learning and socially interacting, which they may not possess inherently.
Creative Teaching CAP supports Discrete Trial Teaching because our materials inherently teach language and other skills in scaffold small steps. For example, we begin by teaching picture recognition and then move to sight word recognition with added folder work and word only flashcards. From there, we progress to reading phrases and sentences and finally, CAP prepares students to generalize and use vocabulary appropriately in real life settings.
For more information on Discrete Trial Teaching visit - http://autism.about.com/od/alllaboutaba/a/abaoverview.htm
