Prompting

1. Prompting Chapter 17 (Cooper, et. al)Chapter 4 (MacDuff, et. al) (Demchek, 1990)

2. Prompting and Prompt Fading • Prompts: • supplemental stimuli that control the target response but are not a part of the natural SD that will eventually control the behavior • (Touchette & Howard, 1984) • Prompts are given before or during the performance of a behavior • they help behavior occur so that the teacher can provide reinforcement • Only introduced during the acquisition phase of instruction

3. Prompting and Prompt Fading • Transfer of Stimulus Control • technique used to fade response and stimulus prompts • Prompts should be used only during acquisition • Transfer stimulus control from prompt to naturally-existing stimuli quickly using fading

4. 2 Types of Prompts • Response Prompts: stimuli added to a child’s response • Verbal Directions • Modeling • Physical Guidance • How else can we say this? • Stimulus Prompts: Stimuli used in conjunction with the task stimuli or instructional materials • Movement Cues • Position Cues • Redundance

5. Response prompts: stimuli added to a child’s response • Verbal directions: • can be one word or several in length and are used very often in typical classrooms • vocal or written • e.g., When teaching a child to tie a shoe –can say remember to make the bows big • e.g., remind the student what they need to do –Remember do your math worksheet and then we can go to the party

6. Response prompts: stimuli added to a child’s response • Verbal directions: • Can be used with children with autism but….. • Child must have responding that is rule-governed or use familiar language • Make sure they are not prompts but critical variables of concern • E.g., instructions –can be taught to respond to these often paired with modeling

7. Response prompts: stimuli added to a child’s response • Modeling prompts • a behavior can be modeled by demonstrating the desired behavior so that it can be imitated. It can be used in combination with other prompts • Child must have generalized imitation • e.g., words on a card to be copied – writing activity schedules • e.g., videotaping the actions of a play script • e.g., drawing the components for an art script • e.g., posture and attention

8. Response prompts: stimuli added to a child’s response • Manual guidance: • an instructor manually guides a child through the entire target response • e.g., teaching a child to dress –not pulling the pants up for a child but putting your hands over the child’s and guiding them pull them up

9. Response Prompt Fading(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural cues) • Most-to-Least Prompts • Graduated Guidance • Shadowing and spatial fading • Least-to-Most Prompts • Time Delay

10. Response Prompt Fading(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural cues) • Most-to-least : • the instructor initially guides the student manually through the entire performance then gradually reduces the amount of manual assistance provided as training progresses from session to session. • e.g., dressing • Gradually reduce amount of manual assistance • Modeling • Verbal instruction • Natural stimulus • When is this hierarchy appropriate?

11. Response Prompt Fading(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural cues) • Graduated guidance • is defined as the teacher provides a manual prompt only when it is needed and then it is faded immediately whenever the student responses correctly. • Foxx and Azrin (1973) recommend using shadowing and spatial fading with the graduated guidance procedure as soon as the student is performing the skill independently.

12. Response Prompt Fading(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural cues) • Graduated guidance • Shadowing • has the teacher following the student’s movements with her hands very near but not touching the child. The teacher then gradually increases the distance of her hands from the student. • Spatial fading • involves gradually changing the location of the manual prompt. • e.g., if the manual prompt is used for a hand movement, the teacher can move the prompt from the hand to the wrist, to the elbow, to the shoulder, and then to no manual contact.

13. Response Prompt Fading(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural cues) • Least to most prompts • Provide participant with an opportunity to perform the response with the least amount of assistance on each trial • Participant receives greater degrees of assistance with each successive trial without a correct response • Advantages • the student always has an opportunity to response and the student’s behavior determines the level of prompting needed for a correct response increasing assistance as necessary. • Disadvantages • multiple errors

14. Example • “Joe point to the number 8 “ • no response • “Joe point to the number 8. It’s the one between 7 and 9 on your number line.” • No response • “Joe watch me point to the number 8 on your paper. Now you point to the number 8.” • He points to the 9 • “Joe point to the number 8. The tutor placed his hand on top of Joe’s and moves his hand close to the number 8” • He points to 9 • “Joe, point to the number 8. The tutor guides Joe’s fingers to the number 8”

15. Response Prompt Fading • Time delay • Varying the time interval between presentation of a natural stimulus and the presentation of a response prompt • Constant time delay • Begin with a 0-sec delay • Then use a fixed delay (e.g., 3 sec) • Progressive time delay • Begin with a 0-sec delay • Gradually and systematically increase delay (e.g., in 1-sec intervals) according to some rule

16. Recommendations when using response prompt fading methods (Demchek, 1990) • Important to consider instructional time to criterion, trial to criterion and errors to criterion. • Procedures that lead to less instructional time or fewer trial should be used

17. Recommendations when using response prompt fading methods (Demchek, 1990) • Procedures that result in fewer errors should also be considered • Once an error is made it tends to be repeated • Errors involve time and further decrease instructional time • Some individuals display non-productive responses when engaged in difficult tasks • Should errorless learning be the fading strategy of choice for all students?

18. Recommendations when using response prompt fading methods (Demchek, 1990) • If the focus of instruction is acquisition, the more efficient prompt fading method is most to least in terms of errors to criterion

19. Recommendations when using response prompt fading methods (Demchek, 1990) • If instruction is focusing on fluency, least to most is more efficient • If teaching discrete responses time delay appears to be more efficient than least to most • If teaching chained response, constant time delay is more efficient than least to most. • Constant time delay may be easier to use than progressive time delay and result in higher procedural reliability when teaching discrete responses

20. Stimulus prompts: stimuli added to an SD prior to a child emitting a response. • Movement prompts • pointing to or looking at the target stimulus. • e.g. when teaching a student to discriminate a penny from a dime you might point to correct coin. • Positional prompts • moving the target stimulus closer to a child. • e.g., if asking for a dime –move it closer

21. Stimulus prompts: stimuli added to an SD prior to a child emitting a response. • Redundance • when additional dimensions (e.g., color, size shape) of the target stimulus are exaggerated • e.g. prompt is exaggerating the lettering on a dime –criterion related • e.g., placing the correct coin on a white sheet of paper –non-criterion related

22. Stimulus Prompt Fading(Transferring from Stimulus Prompts to natural cues) • Stimulus prompts are faded through errorless learning procedures such as: • Stimulus shaping • Transposition • Stimulus fading • (LaBlanc & Etzel, 1981)

23. Stimulus Prompt Fading(Transferring from Stimulus Prompts to natural cues) • -Stimulus fading: • highlighting a manual dimension (e.g., color, size, position) of a stimulus to increase the likelihood of a correct response. • The highlighted or exaggerated dimension is faded gradually in or out. • e.g., fully highlighting a letter “A” to teach handwriting –criterion related prompt • e.g., 17 and 71 –in puzzles –give them a one and have them place the one in the correct position to make 17 or 71 –eventually fade this to a writing task • –criterion related prompts ensure that the child is attending to the relevant dimension of the stimulus.

24. Stimulus Prompt Fading(Transferring from Stimulus Prompts to natural cues) • Superimposition of stimuli is • Frequently used with stimulus fading. • Two specific classes of stimuli are presented to prompt a response. • In one instance the transfer of stimulus control occurs when one stimulus is faded out; in another application one stimulus is faded in as the other stimulus is faded out.

25. Stimulus Prompt Fading(Transferring from Stimulus Prompts to natural cues) • Examples of Superimposition of stimuli • e.g. Terrace (1963): • colored lights (red & green) • Lines superimposed on lights • Lights faded out • e.g., 5 + 2 = 7 1-2-3-4-5- 6-7 • E.g., Pg 406 & 407–criterion related?

26. Stimulus Prompt Fading(Transferring from Stimulus Prompts to natural cues) • Stimulus shape transformations • Use an initial stimulus shape that will prompt a correct response • This shape is gradually changed to form the natural stimulus, while maintaining correct responding • e.g., picture of a car –gradually changing to the written word car –criterion related

27. Another Way to Look at Things…….MacDuff, 2001 • Classification of prompts are not really necessary…..in reality we use them as packages • Although Stimulus and Response prompt classification can be useful

28. Additional promptsStimulus or Response Prompts? • Gestural prompts • Photographs and line drawings • Textual prompts • Tactile • Tones/alarms

29. Prompt-fading systems:Ways to fade Stimulus or Response Prompts? • Most-to Least • Least-to Most • Time Delay • Graduated Guidance • Stimulus Fading • Stimulus Shaping

30. Questions to answer when selecting a prompt • What is the target response? • Does my prompt lead to the target response? • What is the natural stimuli that should control this behavior?

31. Questions to answer when selecting a prompt • Does my prompt lead to that stimuli controlling the behavior? • Order your SDs in a hierarchy from the most natural to the most artificial and select from there • E.g. eye contact –why you wouldn’t say “look” or “hands down” • E.g., teaching a student to discriminate “b” and “d” • Extra stimulus prompt-non-criterion related prompts • Within-stimulus prompts –criterion related prompts –magnified critical features

32. Information to remember when fading prompts: • Am I producing a shift in attention from my prompt to the relevant discriminative stimuli? • Am I decreasing the likelihood of prompt dependency while preventing errors? • -e.g., fading prompts in a timely fashion • Am I using an error-correction procedure if the child makes a mistake? • Am I reinforcing only when I reduce my level of prompt - giving the child an incentive to independently perform the response?

33. Coping with stimulus overdependence and overselectivity • Children with autism’s behavior may be controlled by a limited number of even just one –often non-relevant stimulus -of the complex stimulus • E.g., placement of an object, its color, person doing the teaching • Can recall someone’s name when they are sitting in their seat in the classroom –pass them on the street and I’m in trouble • How do you fix this?

34. Correcting Overselectivity • Control has to be transferred over to the critical features of the SD • Alternate trials involving single components of the complex stimulus with trials containing the intact complex stimulus

35. Stimulus Control Research focusing on Techniques that are Designed to Fade Adult Prompts very Rapidly (Green, 2001) • Activity Schedules • (MacDuff, Krantz &McClannahan, 1993) • Independent/ skills; leisure skills • Script/script fading procedures • (Krantz & McClannahan, 1998) (Stevenson, Krantz & McClannahn, 2000) • Textual or audio prompts • Words embedded in an activity schedule • Initiate and respond to verbal statements • Tactile Prompts • (Taylor & Levin, 1998) • Verbal initiations

36. Stimulus Control Research focusing on Techniques that are Designed to Fade Adult Prompts very Rapidly (Green, 2001) • Video Modeling • (Charlop & Milstein, 1989) (Reeve, et al., 2007) • Purchasing skills, helping skills • Lots of additonal research questions • Priming • (Schreibman, Whalen & Stahmer, 2000) • Decreasing disruptive behavior • Lots of additional research questions • Incidental Teaching or “Naturalistic Techniques” & Natural Language Paradgm • (Hart & Risley, 1968) & (Koegel, 1995) • Verbal initiations