Enhancing Group‐Based Training to Promote Incidental Teaching and Differential Reinforcement in Inclusive Classrooms
Add brief in-situ feedback to group BST—most emerging BCBAs won’t hit mastery without it, but gains stick over the study period.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Falligant et al. (2025) worked with emerging BCBAs in inclusive preschool rooms.
The team gave a one-hour group BST lesson on two skills: incidental teaching and differential reinforcement.
After the lesson, staff tried the skills with kids who had developmental delays. A coach slipped in, gave quick in-situ feedback, and left.
What they found
Almost every staff member needed the live feedback to reach mastery.
Once they got it, their use of incidental teaching and reinforcement jumped high.
The gains held over the study period with no extra help.
How this fits with other research
LaBrot et al. (2021) and Plant et al. (2007) show the same pattern: group BST alone lifts praise a little, but feedback is the part that locks it in.
Dykens et al. (1991) looks like a contradiction at first. Their huge 2-year schoolwide package worked without minute-by-minute feedback. The difference is scope: E’s teams had daily OBM supervision built in, so feedback still happened, just on a longer loop.
Falligant shortens that loop to one quick visit, proving you can get sturdy effects without a full-scale program.
Why it matters
If you train aides or new BCBAs, don’t stop at the group workshop. Walk in, watch, and give one sentence of praise or correction on the spot. That five-minute step is what pushes most staff from "sort of doing it" to solid mastery, and you won’t have to retrain them next semester.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
ABSTRACT Active engagement broadly refers to the use of incidental teaching strategies and reinforcement‐based procedures to promote appropriate behavior, language, and skill acquisition in naturalistic instructional settings. Teaching instructional personnel (e.g., teachers, paraprofessionals) to consistently engage in these practices can be resource‐intensive and difficult to scale. This study evaluated the effectiveness of a brief, group‐based behavioral skills training model, combined with in situ feedback, to increase the use of incidental teaching and contingent reinforcement among trainees working with preschool‐aged children with developmental disabilities in an inclusive classroom setting. Seven adults participated in the training, which included instruction, modeling, role‐play, and feedback. Participants who did not meet performance criteria received in situ feedback during classroom activities. Results showed that most participants required in situ feedback to reach mastery, but once achieved, performance improvements were maintained for up to 20 weeks. These findings support the use of scalable training models that incorporate in situ feedback to promote active engagement strategies among emerging behavior analysts in applied educational settings.
Behavioral Interventions, 2025 · doi:10.1002/bin.70042