By Matt Harrington, BCBA · Behaviorist Book Club · Research-backed answers for behavior analysts
Key prerequisites include: the ability to tolerate item removal without significant problem behavior, basic waiting skills (tolerating a brief delay before re-accessing an item), attending to a partner's actions with a shared item, and at least a rudimentary mand repertoire that allows the learner to request items. Social attention — orienting to peers and responding to basic social bids — is also important because sharing is a social exchange that requires the learner to recognize the partner as a relevant social stimulus. If these prerequisites are absent, instruction targeting them must precede sharing programs. Premature introduction of sharing instruction when prerequisites are not in place typically produces problem behavior rather than learning.
Initial items should be moderately preferred — preferred enough to engage the learner's motivation to participate, but not so highly preferred that releasing the item reliably produces problem behavior. High-preference items create a strong establishing operation against sharing and maximize the probability of failure during early instruction. Preference assessments, including brief free operant observations and paired stimulus preference assessments, help identify items in the moderate preference range. As the learner acquires the sharing behavior chain with moderate-preference items, instruction is systematically extended to higher-preference items using the same task-analyzed steps.
Sharing is fundamentally affected by the current motivating operation for the item or activity being shared. When the learner has had free, unlimited access to an item immediately before a sharing session, the motivation to engage with it — and therefore to share it — is reduced by satiation. Controlling access to shared items before sessions establishes an MO that makes participating in the sharing exchange reinforcing. When the social consequences of sharing (verbal praise from a peer, continued access to the activity through a turn structure) are established as conditioned reinforcers, these social MOs further support sharing behavior across sessions and settings.
A comprehensive sharing task analysis includes: (1) orienting toward the partner when they approach or signal interest, (2) pausing engagement with the item, (3) releasing the item to the partner when cued, (4) waiting while the partner takes their turn without grabbing or problem behavior, (5) re-engaging with the item when the partner returns it or cues the learner's turn. Some programs add steps for verbal behavior: (3a) saying 'your turn' or a functional equivalent when releasing, and (4a) waiting while making an appropriate verbal comment. Data are collected on each step, and prompting is targeted at the specific steps where the learner requires support.
Problem behavior during sharing — typically grabbing, tantrums, or aggression when an item is released — requires a functional behavior assessment before any consequence procedure is implemented. The most common function of problem behavior during sharing is access to the item (the behavior produces return of the item) or escape from the demand. If the function is access, extinction (not returning the item following problem behavior) combined with differential reinforcement of item release is indicated. If problem behavior during waiting is escape-maintained, the underlying waiting skill deficit should be addressed directly, with the sharing demand reduced to a manageable level while waiting skills are built separately.
Multiple exemplar training is the most effective approach to sharing generalization: from early in instruction, vary the partner, the shared activity, the setting, and the cue form. Training sharing only with a therapist using one specific item will not produce spontaneous sharing with peers in a playground — the stimulus conditions are too different. Naturalistic teaching formats, in which sharing opportunities are embedded in play and social activities rather than structured discrete trials, produce better generalization. Caregiver training ensures sharing practice occurs in the home setting. Regular naturalistic probes — observing the learner in unstructured peer play without clinician prompting — provide the data needed to confirm that generalization has occurred.
Peer mediators — typically developing peers trained to prompt and reinforce sharing — create naturalistic practice contexts that produce more robust generalization than therapist-only instruction. Peer-mediated social skills interventions have strong empirical support in JABA and related journals. Training peers to initiate sharing bids, respond positively when the target learner shares, and continue the social interaction creates exactly the social reinforcement contingencies that need to exist for sharing to be maintained by natural social consequences. Behavior analysts implementing peer-mediated sharing programs must train and support peer mediators, monitor implementation fidelity, and build in reinforcement for the peers' efforts.
Sharing goals are appropriate when the learner has the prerequisite skills in place — item release without significant problem behavior, basic waiting, peer attention, and a functional mand repertoire — and when the learner's social development goals prioritize social reciprocity in peer play contexts. Sharing is typically a mid-level social skills target, following the development of foundational skills like joint attention, imitation, and play skills, but preceding more complex social skills like cooperative play and negotiation. Treatment plan priorities should reflect the learner's current level of development, the natural environments in which social skills are most needed, and caregiver priorities.
For early learners with limited social and communication skills, sharing instruction begins with the most basic components: tolerating item removal and simple turn-taking with a single partner and a single item in a highly structured context. For intermediate learners who have basic turn-taking, instruction expands to more natural sharing contexts, varied partners, and verbal behavior components such as requesting turns and responding to partners' sharing bids. For more advanced learners, sharing instruction targets unprompted sharing in complex social contexts like group games, joint projects, and peer conversations, with data collected on spontaneous sharing in naturalistic settings as the primary outcome measure.
Mastery criteria for sharing should be multidimensional to ensure the skill has genuinely generalized. Criteria typically include: accuracy on each step of the task analysis across a specified number of sessions (e.g., 90% over three consecutive sessions), performance with at least two different partners, performance across at least two different sharing activities, and at least one probe documenting unprompted sharing in a naturalistic setting. The naturalistic probe is critical because it distinguishes between prompt-controlled sharing behavior and genuinely social sharing behavior maintained by natural contingencies. Maintenance probes at 30 and 60 days confirm that skills are retained without ongoing structured instruction.
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All behavior-analytic intervention is individualized. The information on this page is for educational purposes and does not constitute clinical advice. Treatment decisions should be informed by the best available published research, individualized assessment, and obtained with the informed consent of the client or their legal guardian. Behavior analysts are responsible for practicing within the boundaries of their competence and adhering to the BACB Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts.