Chaining is the processes of adding small behaviors together to create a larger, more complex and sophisticated behavior. The easiest example of this is toilet training. You eventually want your child to respond to "go to the bathroom", but that can mean a lot of things, especially for our kiddos who think very literally. You may have to walk them through the entire process. First, we go to the bathroom, then we pull down our pants, sit on the toilet, and so on and so forth. These smaller behaviors need to be outlined, but they all fall into the routine of "go to the bathroom". Essentially, you are "fading" some of the verbal prompts until the different components are routine, or "chained" together.