Natural language procedures
Natural language training is a set of procedures used by behavior analysts that rely heavily on mand training in the natural environment. These procedures include incidental teaching, functional communication training, and pivotal response treatment, which are used to mirror the natural areas of language use for children. Behavior analytic language training procedures run along a continuum from highly restrictive such as discrete trial training to very nonrestrictive conversationally-based strategies. Natural language falls in the middle of these procedures.
History
Natural language training, sometimes referred to as milieu language training emerged from generalization research by Donald Baer. The focus on these procedures was to use concepts closer to the natural environment to reduce prompt dependency and promote generalization. The initial procedure was the incidental teaching procedure.The natural language training approach is often contrasted with discrete trial approaches. In discrete trial program there is a clear trial window and only the first response is scored. If incorrect no reward is delivered and the trainer moves to the next trial. In the milieu language training program, the trainer uses a least-to-most response strategy and waits for the correct response to be produced. Research exists showing that over 90% of the studies report good generalization for natural language training procedures.