Role relations between children who are mentally retarded and their older siblings: observations in three in-home contexts.

Researchers watched older brothers and sisters at home with a younger sibling who had an intellectual disability. They looked at three spots: play time, meal time, and homework time. The team wrote down who led each activity and how much the kids talked or helped each other.

Big brothers and sisters slipped into teacher or helper roles all by themselves. The way they acted changed with the room and the task. At the dinner table they gave more cues. During play they showed new games step by step.

Giofrè et al. (2014) and Trembath et al. (2019) later counted these same helpful moves. They found the typical siblings used even better learning tricks than moms did, and the child with ID paid more attention to them. Weitz (1982) did the same idea earlier, but trained classmates at school. The classmate study proved you can teach typical peers to tutor; the 1989 home study shows siblings already do it for free. Bitsika et al. (2018) took the next step and trained siblings to use a speech program. Two of three kids with autism hit new speech goals, showing the natural helper role can be shaped into real therapy.

You already have a built-in assistant in the home. Ask the older sibling to model the skill you just taught. Let them hand over tokens, give wait time, or demonstrate turn-taking while you coach from the side. One minute of sibling lead each hour can triple practice chances without extra staff.