Developing Functional Language with Young Children from English‐speaking and Punjabi‐speaking Home Backgrounds: incidental teaching and contingent access to materials

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Abstract
Summary Two nursery class teachers were introduced to, and instructed in the use of, ‘Incidental Teaching’ (I.T.) procedures designed to facilitate child initiated language interactions in the natural classroom environment. Both nursery classes included a large proportion of children from Punjabi‐speaking homes. Throughout the study teacher‐child language interactions were sampled using a radio microphone linked to a tape recorder. For each sample all child initiations addressed to the teacher were transcribed together with all teachers’ responses to child initiations. A multiple baseline design across teachers/classes was employed to evaluate the effects of I.T. procedures and an amended strategy. After the initial training session, both teachers’ use of I.T. procedures increased markedly and in both classes children initiated more frequently. The total number of words spoken to the teacher, and the average number of words spoken per child, increased in both groups. During a second intervention phase (the amended strategy), when the teachers arranged the environment so that children were required to request access to certain materials, both the number of child initiations and the teachers’ use of I.T. procedures continued to rise in both classes. In school A both the total number of words spoken, and the average number of words used per child, continued to rise, whilst in school B the total number of words spoken and the average number of words used per child fell, as more children with restricted language became involved in language interactions.