The setup: Joey is working receptive colors. Joey's teacher wants him to independently select a cube of a named color from an array of three differently colored cubes. Before she designed this program, Joey's teacher gave Joey a quick probe (initial assessment) and determined that he was not able to identify a blue cube when asked, so she knows that he is going to need help right away in finding that color. Joey also has trouble following lengthy streams of language, so his teacher knows that she will need to keep her directions consistent, short, and clear. The teacher also knows that Joey finds praise from her reinforcing -- so she can use that to reinforce approximations or prompted responses -- and that he really loves M&Ms -- so she can use that to reinforce independent correct answers.

Again this example is much more stale and unimaginative than I typically strive for in my sessions, but is, I hope, illustrative of the steps of a discrete trial, if not a prime example of a fantastic teaching style.

Teacher: "Joey, show me blue."
The teacher takes Joey’s hand, shapes it so the index finger is extended, and points to the blue cube.
Teacher: "Yes! That’s the blue cube. Nice job."
The teacher jots on the data sheet that Joey was unable to independently identify the blue cube on this trial.
[End of first trial.]

Teacher: "Joey, show me blue."
Joey does not respond. After a few seconds, the teacher places her hand on Joey’s, Joey extends his finger himself, and the teacher helps him to find the blue cube.
Teacher: "Yup. That’s the blue cube."
The teacher jots on the data sheet that Joey was unable to independently identify the blue cube on this trial.
[End of second trial.]

Teacher: "Joey, show me blue."
Joey does not respond. After a few seconds, the teacher moves to take Joey’s hand, but as she does, Joey points to the blue cube.
Teacher: "Good job! That’s the blue cube."
Joey still needed a little prompt — the teacher’s moving to take his hand — so the teacher jots on the data sheet that Joey was unable to independently identify the blue cube on this trial.
[End of third trial.]

Teacher: "Joey, show me blue."
Joey points to the blue cube.
Teacher: "Yes! Great job! That’s the blue cube."
The teacher gives Joey a high five and a couple of M&Ms. She marks on the data sheet that Joey was able to identify the blue cube on this trial.
[End of fourth trial.]

In the first three trials, all five parts of the discrete trial are present: the discriminative stimulus (the teacher's asking Joey to show her blue), a prompting stimulus (the teacher's shaping a response, or giving a slight cue to get Joey going); a response (even though Joey did not produce the target response, independent selection of the cube, in these first three trials, he did produce a prompted response in each, and with increasing accuracy), the reinforcing stimulus (the teacher's verbal praise and encouragement), and the inter-trial interval (the period between trials where the teacher was able to take down the data from that trial).

In the fourth trial, there was no prompting stimulus, which was the desired outcome, as the teacher wanted Joey to perform this task independently. Also, as Joey did exactly what the teacher wanted of him in this trial, the reinforcement for this trial is escalated, with the hope that the child, wanting that same level of reinforcement again in the future, will perform similarly later on.

The next section is a closer examination of the discriminative stimulus.

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