By Matt Harrington, BCBA · Behaviorist Book Club · Research-backed answers for behavior analysts
Hand raising serves multiple functions: it signals engagement to the instructor, regulates group turn-taking, provides opportunities for academic responding and reinforcement, and demonstrates the conditional discrimination between knowing and not knowing an answer. Children who cannot participate appropriately in group instruction may be excluded from inclusive educational settings, miss learning opportunities, and have limited practice with social participation skills. Teaching this skill opens access to the educational and social benefits of group instruction.
The conditional discrimination requires the child to evaluate each question and produce one of two responses. When the child knows the answer, the correct response is to raise a hand. When the child does not know the answer, the correct response is to keep both hands down. This dual requirement makes the skill more complex than simple hand raising because the child must assess their own knowledge status and respond differently based on that assessment. Teaching only the hand-raising response without the inhibition component produces a child who raises their hand indiscriminately.
The teaching procedures included modeling, prompting, and reinforcement. Modeling involved the instructor demonstrating the correct response in the presence of questions the child did and did not know. Prompting provided graduated assistance to help the child perform the correct response, faded systematically as competence increased. Reinforcement was delivered contingent on correct discrimination, meaning the child raised their hand on know trials and kept hands down on do-not-know trials. These standard behavioral procedures were applied in a group instruction context to teach this specific social skill.
Before teaching the conditional discrimination, assess whether the child can attend to an instructor's question, can raise a hand on command as a simple motor response, can discriminate between known and unknown information, and has sufficient impulse control to inhibit responding briefly. Additionally, verify the child's knowledge status for the questions you plan to use in training to ensure that know and do-not-know trials are valid. If prerequisite skills are absent, address them before or concurrently with the hand-raising program.
Generalization should be programmed from the beginning, not added after the skill is acquired in controlled conditions. Strategies include varying the instructor across training sessions, using diverse questions that span different content areas, conducting training in multiple settings including the natural classroom, gradually increasing the group size, and introducing natural classroom conditions as the child demonstrates competence. Periodically assess the child's performance in the natural classroom to determine whether generalization is occurring and adjust training accordingly.
Conduct a brief assessment before each training session by presenting a set of questions and recording whether the child can answer each one independently and correctly. Questions the child answers correctly with high consistency are classified as know questions. Questions the child cannot answer or answers incorrectly are classified as do-not-know questions. This assessment must be updated regularly because the child's knowledge changes over time as they learn. Using questions with unverified knowledge status would undermine the validity of the conditional discrimination training.
Yes. The approach of identifying the specific discrimination involved in a group participation skill and teaching it using modeling, prompting, and reinforcement can be applied to many related skills. These include waiting for a turn to speak, responding to group directions, following along when another student is called on, transitioning between group and individual activities, and attending to peers during sharing time. For each skill, identify the component discriminations, establish clear criteria for correct and incorrect responding, and apply the same systematic teaching procedures.
Track the percentage of correct discriminations separately for know and do-not-know trials. For each instructional opportunity, record whether the child raised their hand (for know trials, this is correct; for do-not-know trials, this is incorrect) or kept hands down (for do-not-know trials, this is correct; for know trials, this is incorrect). Calculate accuracy percentages for each trial type separately, as a child may perform well on one type but not the other. This differentiated data collection reveals exactly where the discrimination is breaking down and guides targeted instruction.
Initially, use potent reinforcers delivered immediately after correct discriminations to establish the behavior. As accuracy increases, begin thinning the reinforcement schedule by reinforcing intermittently rather than continuously. Simultaneously, ensure that natural contingencies are in place: when the child raises their hand on know trials, they should be called on and have the opportunity to answer, which functions as natural reinforcement. Gradually shift from programmed reinforcers to these natural outcomes. The natural contingency of being called on and receiving acknowledgment should eventually maintain the behavior independently.
This pattern indicates that the discrimination has not been established. The child has learned the raising response but not the conditional component. Increase the salience of do-not-know trials by providing more explicit instruction about what to do when they do not know the answer. Use more salient prompts on do-not-know trials, such as demonstrating keeping hands folded. Ensure that reinforcement is not inadvertently being delivered for incorrect hand raises on do-not-know trials. Consider increasing the ratio of do-not-know trials temporarily to provide more practice with the inhibition component.
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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.