Natural Environment Teaching (NET) is utilizing principles of Applied Behavior Analysis to teach in the natural environment, “the real world”.

 

Because children with autism are not typically motivated to learn new things and are more than happy with things in their comfort zone, Natural Environment Teaching is necessary yet can be particularly difficult.   Applying behavioral therapies away from a structured setting of a school or day care,  our professionals are able to utilize a child’s familiar activities and materials in the child’s home to learn skills not typically addressed in a clinic setting. Our clinic stresses the importance of Natural Environment Teaching to diversify our children's setting.   The goal is to apply learned behavior and concepts to real life.   Many programs  are very limited with this teaching and some do not teach new skills in the natural environment at all.  Unfortunately, this can lead to a child only being able to learn skills in one environment such as skills gained in therapy, and this is not able to be translated outside of therapy well.