An evaluation of progressively increasing intertrial intervals on the acquisition and generalization of three social skills.

Two preschoolers learned three social skills in a small-room DTT format.

The teacher started with a two-second pause between trials.

Every few sessions she added one second until the pause reached ten seconds.

A second phase kept the pause at two seconds to see if timing mattered.

The kids used the skills on their own only when the pauses slowly grew longer.

When the pause stayed short the skills never showed up without help.

The longer-pause skills also appeared with new adults and in new rooms.

Ferguson et al. (2022) updated this idea. They showed that a full progressive DTT package beats equivalence-based teaching for speed and kid preference.

Francis et al. (2020) used a different fade—progressive time delay—and also got strong learning with preschoolers who had disabilities. Their generalization was mixed, just like T et al.

Macdonald et al. (1973) ran the first lab tests on pauses. Pigeons needed any non-zero pause to learn matching. T et al. moved the same parametric rule into child social-skills teaching.

If you run DTT for social skills, do not lock the intertrial interval. Start quick, then stretch the pause each day. The tiny change lets kids practice thinking on their own and helps the skill travel to new people and places.