The purpose of this study was to test the effects of playful physical contact as an establishing operation (EO) on correct academic responses for four-year-old preschool students with developmental disabilities who functioned at the pre-speaker and pre-listener levels of verbal behavior. Two males and one female served as participants who attended a publicly funded, private preschool outside a large metropolitan area. A multi-element design (alternating treatments design followed by an AB design) was used to test the effects of the establishing operation. The data were collected in seven acquisition programs and one performance program for each participant. The establishing operation consisted of experimenters' tickling, spinning, and hugging the participants as pre-instructional play for 10 seconds for every 10 learn units. The results of these data showed that an establishing operation was effective at increasing correct academic responding across all participants. In addition, Participants A and B emitted more mands for the playful physical contact during the pre-play sessions (mands were not measured for Participant C). (Contains 4 tables and 3 figures.)