What technique is being used when a CTRS teaches a child separate hygiene actions before combining them into a routine?

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The technique being utilized is chaining. This approach involves breaking down a complex skill, such as personal hygiene, into smaller, more manageable steps. By teaching the child each individual action separately—like washing hands, brushing teeth, or combing hair—the therapist allows the child to focus on mastering one segment at a time. Once the child understands and is able to perform these individual actions, they are then combined into a complete routine. This method is particularly effective in promoting skill acquisition in a variety of educational and therapeutic settings because it builds on the child's ability to connect smaller tasks into a cohesive process, reinforcing learning and fostering independence.

Chaining is different from modeling, which would involve demonstrating the entire routine for the child to imitate, rather than breaking it down. Shaping refers to gradually reinforcing successive approximations towards a desired behavior, and extinction involves the removal of reinforcement to decrease a behavior, neither of which applies in this scenario.