Further examination of discriminated functional communication.

One preschooler with developmental delay kept grabbing adults to get their eyes on him. The team taught him to tap an adult's arm and say "excuse me" instead.

They ran the lessons during real classroom lulls—story time, cleanup, or any quiet moment when the teacher was free. No extra table sessions, no contrived drills.

The boy used the new mand in every tested spot—circle time, playground, and even at home. Problem grabbing dropped to near zero.

Skills stuck for two months with no booster lessons. Generalization happened because the cue to talk was already baked into daily routines.

Stagnone et al. (2025) later copied the same idea with three autistic kids. They added a quick functional analysis first to prove the behavior was truly attention-seeking, then got the same clean drop in repetitive questions.

Weyman et al. (2024) tackled a different reinforcer—toys, not attention—but used the same natural-timing trick plus prompt fading to cut prompt dependency. Together the three papers show FCT works best when you piggy-back on routines already in the room.

DeRoma et al. (2004) watched 14 typical preschoolers and saw teachers already hand out attention right after problem acts. That real-world pattern gives Leon et al. (2010) its power: the reinforcement is sitting there waiting, so just teach the kid how to ask.

Stop reserving FCT for a quiet corner. Look for naturally nonbusy moments—turning book pages, wiping tables, waiting in line—and drop the mand trial there. You get free generalization plus zero extra staff time.