More Details: Body Part Identification

Try to present the new item 4-6 times out of every 10 trials, leaving 1 or 2 trials each for the mastered items. Here are some examples of good orders for sets of 10 trials of body parts. Let’s say your child has already learned tummy, nose, and foot, and you’re now teaching “head:”

And remember that you really only need to keep track of how well your child is doing learning the new item, in this case “head,” because he should already know the others. Of course, as your child learns more and more items, he will have fewer opportunities to practice any of the ones he’s already mastered. That’s because you’ll still need to make sure he practices the new item at least 4 times in each set of 10 trials, leaving only 6 of the 10 trials at most to practice more and more mastered items, but that’s OK. Just make sure that you practice each of the mastered items at least once every day, being on the lookout for any mistakes he might make. In the following clip, a little boy is learning “elbow”. He has already learned most of the other common body parts so his teacher is presenting “elbow” mixed in with the other body parts he has learned in an unpredictable order. She is doing more trials of “elbow” than any of the other body parts. However, she is still able to practice many of the other body parts the child has learned while teaching him the new body part: elbow.

You can also do extra sets of maintenance trials just to practice mastered body parts so that your child doesn’t lose them. And, if you see that he’s beginning to make errors on a body part that you thought he had learned well, simply treat it as you would a new body part, presenting it at least 4 times out of every 10, prompting as needed and fading your prompts as you go along. Eventually, he’ll learn it again.