With the start of Summer comes endless possibilities of fun in the sun, from beach days to festivals and fireworks. But for many children with sensory challenges, some of these activities can be overstimulating. Instead, there are many fun and individualizable activities for your child to enjoy which meet their sensory needs. Let’s review a few activities that you and your family can try before Fall comes back around.
Water Tables
Water tables make for a fun way to explore different textures. There are many activities you can do with water tables to make them both fun and educational.
Place objects in the water table and give your child a net to “fish” them out. You could use letters, numbers, colored ducks, etc.
Fill it with dirt and rocks and dig or drive through it with toy trucks.
Fill the table with water beads, sand, shaving cream, or pom poms and explore the different textures.
If your water table is small enough, you could place the water table in your bathtub. Your child can enjoy water play in a structured way indoors on rainy days.
Scavenger Hunts
Scavenger hunts can be so exciting. They encourage physical activity, exploring, and learning about the environment. They also require problem-solving and creativity. There are countless ways to make these unique and enjoyable.
Pick a theme of high interest for your child and curate the scavenger hunt around that theme. Examples: Dinosaurs, princesses, letters, etc.
Choose items to search for that your child is currently working on learning about. For example, if they’re working on identifying animals, the scavenger hunt may consist of animal toys, stuffed animals, animal puzzles, etc.
Take a walk around the neighborhood, searching for safety signs, items in nature, or other objects around your environment.
Obstacle Courses
For your highly active sensory seeker, obstacle courses are a unique way to burn energy and have fun. These may be used to work on balance, coordination, and motor planning as well. This is another great activity where creativity can shine.
Set up cones or other barriers to run or jump or hop around.
Place climbing blocks, stepping stones, or other uneven surfaces to walk on and climb through.
Move through the obstacle course like different animals-Bear crawl, hop like a bunny, etc.
Water Play
For children who enjoy water, but get overstimulated in large crowds like there are at waterparks or the beach, there are so many other fun ways to explore the water.
Sprinklers – The sprinkler level may need to be adjusted to fit your child’s comfort. For example, if your child does not like getting their face wet, but does like to run through the water, having the sprinkler level low would meet that desire.
Water balloons – While some children with hypersensitivity to stimuli may not enjoy a water balloon fight, they may find enjoyment in the actions of throwing water balloons and watching them splash when hit on surfaces.
Let them hose the car or bikes, fill up a bucket with water, or water the plants. So many options!
Fall is right around the corner. Before the cool air comes back around, try some of the activities suggested above to enjoy the weather in a sensory-friendly environment. Be sure to personalize each activity around your child’s interests, skillset, and needs.
About the Author
Ashleigh Evans, MS, is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She has been practicing in the behavior analysis field for over 13 years and opened her own independent practice in early 2022. Her experience has been vast across different age groups, diagnoses, and needs. She is passionate about improving the field through education, reformative action, and better supervisory practices, leading her to create content and resources for families and ABA professionals which can be found on her website, www.evansbehavioralservices.com/.
Originally posted on July 21, 2022 by Different Roads to Learning
Written by Ashleigh Evans, MS, BCBA. Reposted with permission from Dr. Anton Shcherbakov, BCBA, Co-founder of ThinkPsych
Behavior analysts and other professionals in the ABA field are tasked with the job of creating behavioral and skill acquisition goals for their learners. Choosing behaviors and skills to target can be challenging, with many considerations to make. One vital consideration when developing goals is to determine whether they are socially significant.
What is Social Significance in ABA?
Social significance refers to goals that are, first and foremost, important to the learner. If your learner can verbally communicate what’s important to them, this should take the highest priority. Some clinicians may not consider a learner’s goals due to their age or communication barriers. However, by monitoring for signs of assent, you can learn a great deal about what is important to the learner, even if they cannot verbally answer what goals they want to work on.
Beyond what’s important to the learner, social significance considers what goals are important to stakeholders and to society as a whole. Socially significant goals are behaviors and skills that will improve your learner’s overall quality of life and well-being. Goals should never be chosen simply for the convenience of others.
Considerations to Determine if a Behavior is Socially Significant
You may find yourself asking a number of questions when contemplating targeting a particular goal. Let’s review several considerations to make when evaluating whether to target a particular goal.
Is this behavior important to my learner?
As previously stated, this is the most important aspect of social significance. If the skill is something your learner is interested in or a behavior that they are motivated to modify, this would be considered a socially significant goal. Goals that are important to your learner should almost always be prioritized.
Will the skill cause harm or distress?
This may seem like an obvious one, but it’s important to carefully consider. Many ABA practices that were commonplace even just a few short years ago are now known to be potentially harmful, with advocates and autistic adults bringing concerns to light. For example, a lack of eye contact is common in people with autism. Some professionals consider eye contact to be an important social skill to target. However, many autistic individuals report adverse physiological reactions to eye contact. In other words, forcing eye contact may physically hurt. Research on this topic found that autistic adults and teens experience a wide range of reactions when engaged in eye contact including dizziness and headaches, increased heart rate, and nausea. Many also reported sensory overload when making eye contact, resulting in an inability to process and integrate visual and auditory information at the same time. Taking into consideration this information, one would likely determine that eye contact is not socially significant unless it is a skill the individual reports a desire to improve upon. When developing goals, determining whether targeting the skill may cause harm is vital.
Does the goal support the learner’s social-emotional development?
Social-emotional development is vital for a happy, healthy life. Research has found that a strong foundation of social-emotional skills can significantly improve a child’s future social, emotional, and academic success.
Social-emotional learning encompasses a wide range of skills related to self-awareness, self-control, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Due to the social communication challenges that autistic children commonly experience, the development of these skills often takes more strategic planning and effort on the part of therapists, educators, and caregivers.
Make social-emotional learning enjoyable for your learner by engaging them in games and other preferred activities that support the development of these vital skills. Chat Chains, for example, is a unique game that targets developing conversational skills, teaches emotional awareness, and practices important social skills, all while having fun!
Will the skill enhance safety?
A staggering 28% of deaths of autistic people result from accidental injury. This includes causes such as suffocation, asphyxiation, and drowning. Of the general population, 6.5% of deaths result from accidental injury. This likely plays a significant role in the drastically reduced life span. The average age of an autistic individual at death is about half that of the general population, 36 years of age.
While these statistics are bleak, they highlight the need for a focus on skills that will keep your learner safe. Following crucial safety instructions, navigating situations such as getting lost, communicating personal information, identifying hot and poisonous items, and water safety are all socially significant skills that can keep your learner safe.
Will the skill increase independence?
Promoting independence can build self-esteem, increase the generalization of skills across environments, and improve your learner’s overall satisfaction in their life. There are countless socially significant skills that can promote independence. Teaching communication and self-advocacy skills are arguably the most important skills necessary for enhancing independence. Self-help skills, money management, household chores, and vocational skills are also important to consider when developing goals that will increase your learner’s independence.
Has the child acquired the necessary prerequisite skills?
Oftentimes, caregivers and professionals have big goals for their children or clients. This might result in jumping the gun a bit in implementing big-picture goals such as toilet training. However, it’s important to consider whether the child has developed the necessary prerequisite skills before targeting a goal. A simple example of this is following multiple-step instructions. Perhaps a parent asks you to target instructions such as putting away their shoes and backpack when they arrive home. While these may be socially significant goals, if the child cannot yet follow simple single-step instructions, then it would not be appropriate to target multiple-step instructions.
Final Words
Developing socially significant goals for your learners takes time and consideration. Ensuring that the goal will improve the learner’s quality of life and well-being should always be at the forefront.
About the Author
Ashleigh Evans, MS, is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst. She has been practicing in the behavior analysis field for over 13 years and opened her own independent practice in early 2022. Her experience has been vast across different age groups, diagnoses, and needs. She is passionate about improving the field through education, reformative action, and better supervisory practices, leading her to create content and resources for families and ABA professionals which can be found on her website, www.evansbehavioralservices.com/.
About ThinkPsych and Dr. Anton Shcherbakov
ThinkPsych is a company committed to making fun and evidence-based toys for social emotional learning. Co-founder Dr. Anton Shcherbakov is a licensed psychologist and board certified behavior analyst. He has co-authored peer-reviewed research on topics that include depression and suicide prevention. He is also a nationally recognized expert and frequent presenter at national conferences on the treatment of anxiety, ADHD, autism spectrum, OCD, and related conditions. He previously taught at the Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology. In addition to his work at ThinkPsych, he provides psychotherapy to children, adolescents, and adults at The Center for Emotional Health of Greater Philadelphia. In his free time, he enjoys traveling with his family, cooking meals with too many ingredients, and watching the latest Netflix documentary series.
By Dr. Stephanny Freeman and Kristen Hayashida, BCBA
Super Parents! We know you used your Executive Function (EF) powers to prepare for summer! For most of us, this process started as early as February with camp sign-ups, enrichment programs, juggling schedules and the time-off of others, extended family, competing obligations, and maybe even a family vacation. We see summer as a hot/humid gigantic puzzle of weeks that must be filled with fortifying activities that surely and absolutely develop our young children’s minds, bodies, and souls! We fear expense, we fear boredom, we fear regression, we fear pushback or dislike, ARGH!!!
But truthfully, for us, as summer approaches, we just feel accomplished if we found anything where the kids would at least come home ‘happy and exhausted!’
That said, we know the LAST thing you want to think about is adding more pressure to yourself on how to better “enrich” your child’s summer.
Hold on though… what if we said it was easy, part of what you already do, and would embed into your summer plans?
Pass on your EF super-powers and turn any activity into executive function practice that will not only enhance and develop your child’s skills but may actually make your life easier!
Planning
The easiest and most obvious is Planning. Planning entails the ability to identify all the different steps needed to achieve a specific goal and in what order those steps need to happen. Involving your children in the planning of any outing, particularly road trips or vacations is an incredible way to develop their EF skills. For example, for very young children, have them download and print pictures of different sights, people, or locations that you might see on the outing/trip.
Organization
Organization includes the capacity to prioritize and make decisions about which tasks to undertake, as well as anticipate and keep track of needed materials or resources. So, use the printed pictures and put them in order using a calendar and a map to take into account location/day/participants. Then make a list of “things you’ll need” for each event. For example, if you are going swimming, make a list of the items needed for the pool. It is not lost on us that you all do this anyway but we encourage a little extra time to include your kids and have the visuals. We’ll bet it will also improve the likelihood that you’ll have everything you need!
Time Awareness
Time Awareness is part of the broader skill of time management which includes the ability to anticipate how long tasks might take and be aware of time constraints. This is developmentally challenging for younger children who are still emerging in their understanding of the abstract concept of time; however, you can still enhance experiences and continue development within something you are already doing. A great opportunity for helping children develop time awareness is at amusement parks, fairs, or zoos. Look at showtimes for when the animals are being fed and help your child consider how long they have to see other exhibits before the show. Use a map and have your child consider how long it will take to walk from exhibit to exhibit and ask their input for when might be best to stop for lunch. Using a combination of visuals (e.g., maps, showtimes) and verbal support, you can help your child think about time in a more tangible way.
Inhibitory Control and Problem Solving
Within plans, there are always smaller activities. For example, a beach day might include building sandcastles, going boogie boarding, and splashing in the waves. You and your child have planned the outing, organized what you need to bring, and timed out the outing so you can squeeze all the activities in. Once at the beach, Inhibitory Control and Problem Solving become your new EF goals! Inhibitory Control involves the ability to regulate one’s attention, behavior, thinking, and emotion. We are hard-wired to be aware of and prime our children for what is unsafe (stay close to our spot on the beach, no going into the water without us, etc.). But what about doing some priming for emotion? For example, have your children try to identify what things might go a different way than expected and then come up with potential solutions. It doesn’t have to be doom and gloom (i.e., what might go wrong), but more fun and exciting – like a challenge. Ask your child as they are building their castle… “What will you do if a huge tsunami comes to your world?” Praise them for their control and problem solving and use that same language when other unexpected things happen (e.g., the Godzilla neighboring child that inadvertently stomps through the castle).
Cognitive Flexibility
Summer is also a great time to encourage cognitive flexibility. This entails having your child shift their thinking! Change their approach! Recognize and accept when something needs to be changed. There should be a sign that parents carry with them over the summer because in my experience, everything summer-related required a relaxed attitude to keep my sanity. Not kidding — carry a sign that says, “Bendy is Fun!” and remind the children of this fact any time you use pliable materials in play (e.g., sand, play dough, clay, craft materials). These materials are fun because they can be used in so many different ways and be remolded into something else. During summer activities, point out constantly to your children with the “Bendy is Fun” board that when you tried something new, or did something different, it was being “bendy” and worked out for the best.
EF skills are very intertwined and build upon each other. We often call them “cogs” in our brain machine. EF strategies often overlap and facilitate one another so you can do just a few tiny little changes to your summer activities and make them really enriching to benefit EF skills. EF skills are for life and learning. Starting your children early and practicing these skills in the most embedded and easy ways will ensure that your summer is filled with enrichment!
About the Authors
Dr. Stephanny Freeman is a clinical professor at UCLA, a licensed clinical psychologist, and Co-Directs the Early Childhood Partial Hospitalization Program (ECPHP). For 20 years, she has educated children with ASD and other exceptionalities as a teacher, studied interventions for social emotional development, and designed curriculum and behavior plans in school and clinic settings.
Kristen Hayashida is a Board Certified Behavior Analyst at the UCLA Early Childhood Partial Hospitalization Program (ECPHP). For the last 10 years she has served as a therapist, researcher and educator of children and families living with autism spectrum disorder through the treatment of problem behavior.
This month’s ASAT feature comes to us from Dr. Karen Parenti, MS, PsyD CEO/Executive Director, and Heather Rothman, BS, LBS, Director of Day Services, Special Friends Foundation. To learn more about ASAT, please visit their website at www.asatonline.org. You can also sign up for ASAT’s free newsletter, Science in Autism Treatment, and like them on Facebook!
I am the parent of an adult with autism, who will soon transition from a school program to adulthood. I am reading about engagement as an indicator of good programming. What does it mean and how can I tell if a program promotes it?
Answered by Karen Parenti, MS, PsyD, CEO/Executive Director, andHeather Rothman, BS, LBS, Director of Day Services, Special Friends Foundation
Transition into adult programming is an important, but often stressful, process for families and individuals to experience. Adult programming should be designed to build skills and to promote happiness. Essentially every parent wants their adult child to have a high quality of life, to be offered activities they find enjoyable, and to be self-determining. For this to happen, the individual needs to be fully engaged in the program. Family members, clinicians, behavior analysts, program specialists, administrators, and social workers who provide services to individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism (ID/A) need to remember the importance of active engagement when planning and implementing programs as well as when designing goals.
Imagine for a minute the perspective of an individual receiving services. In most cases, this means the individual has had a diagnosis of some kind since childhood. The current model for treatment in children may result in a consistent feeling of “other-ness,” whether that looks like segregated classrooms, peer mentors, wraparound therapists, or specialized activities dependent on the label. From the perspective of the individual, this can look like endless task demands, shallow or contrived social interactions, decreased opportunities for genuine relationships, and severely limited access to the community. In addition, for a lot of the individuals served, the ability to protest “appropriately” is diminished, either because of communication barriers or skill deficits, or because they are not given opportunities to practice these skills. Empowering individuals to become architects of their experience and to express dissent and discomfort are crucial goals to ensure agency, assent, and quality of life. In addition, providing more choices can be part of a trauma-informed focus of care, and can ensure that individuals are served in a humane and compassionate manner (Rajaraman, 2021).
Although engagement as a clinical construct has yet to be deeply researched in applied behavior analysis (ABA), there has always been an ongoing interest in social validity, which is an emerging interest in the field (Morris et al, 2021). It should be noted that in the workforce, engagement has been defined for employees and became understood as a configuration of vigor, dedication, and absorption that motivates exceptional work performance (Leiter, 2019). Engagement, just like all metrics of success in the human services and special education fields, is personal and individualized for everyone. It is therefore important that engagement is individually assessed and monitored for everyone; from a parental or caregiver perspective, it is important to help the team understand how your family member expresses happiness, dissatisfaction, and protest. Teams may work to ensure high levels of satisfaction by ensuring that individuals attend the program regularly (or determine why there might be issues with attendance), and that preferences are identified in goals addressing the social, work, and living environments. It is imperative that teams ask themselves important questions such as is assent gained, routinely assessed, and honored? Moreover, does the individual seem happy while in the adult setting?
In recent years, the focus on engagement has altered the way in which quality programs are identified. Historically, there was a common focus on productivity and on compliance. While productivity remains relevant, engagement can become a main focus of intervention. In addition, the quality of interactions with individuals is also highly valued. Providers should focus on engaging the individual first by developing a positive relationship and pairing themselves with reinforcement. Individuals served, like all people, will always respond to genuine respect and regard, and this should be a foundation of service provision.
This value on engagement is consistent with heightened awareness in the field of ABA to ensure that all intervention is humane and compassionate, and that self-determinism is maximized for all individuals. In the context of adult intervention, such qualities can be seen in the extent to which engagement is observable. Some questions can be asked, and some behaviors associated with engagement can be observed.
Engagement is observable when a person is enthusiastically participating in their program. Choice has emerged as a necessary piece of engagement; individuals should be offered a range of meaningful activities from which to select, while still retaining the right to refuse. This is closely related to the Positive Approaches paradigm defined by Guy Legare (2002), who “encourages us to see clearly and honestly the good reasons and adaptive qualities of even the most troubling behavior, no matter whose behavior it is.” Provider agency staff and special education school personnel who excel at this skill set seem to be the ones to whom an individual is a person first, and these professionals never see an individual as a “case” or “set of behaviors.”
Although clinicians have considerable access to different types of preference assessments, as well as training on how to use them, it’s valuable to keep in mind all the factors that influence the efficacy of reinforcers with regards to engagement. For example, an individual may be more likely to be engaged in an activity in which they are participating with others, in a novel location. Engagement is a reinforcer unto itself but requires a deep knowledge of the individual and their preferences as well as focusing on the relationship between the individual and the staff member. As with any other treatment focus, engagement depends heavily on a positive, nurturing, and entertaining relationship between two people.
Engagement has to be individualized so that it can be maximized. It is observable, able to be defined and measured, and important to consider in placement, goal development, and in the ongoing assessment of progress. Programs can follow some general guidelines to increase the likelihood of enthusiastic participation, build active engagement, and foster self-determinism. These concepts include but are not limited to:
Demonstrating unconditional positive regard – Staff and clinicians need to ensure that the individual they are working with is always treated with respect and dignity. Building rapport with each individual and communicating with those individuals regularly is essential to creating a compassionate, humane treatment environment.
Attain Assent – Assent is emphasized in the Ethics Code (BACB, 2022), and should be secured whenever possible. Recent research indicates that this is an area that can improve and can also be done with individuals who are non-vocal (Morris, 2021). The team should ensure that the individual is continually involved in making choices regarding their daily activities. Attain assent for activities, and regularly check in about whether the individual is still willing to do the tasks. Honor withdrawal of assent.
Solicit and accept feedback – Being receptive to feedback means allowing individuals to critique and course-correct staff behavior. Although feedback can be directly solicited, individuals provide feedback in lots of indirect ways as well. It is important to ensure there is reciprocal shaping of interactions between staff and individuals. Being open to changing the approach, based on cues from the individual, allows for the individuals served to have a measure of control over their own treatment, which increases the likelihood they will be enthusiastic participants, and therefore engaged.
Prioritize needs – Staff and clinicians need to ensure that the individual they are working with has their basic needs always met.
Respect all forms of communication – Staff and clinicians need to respect all verbal and nonverbal communication from that individual. These subtleties can be missed if the staff is not paying close enough attention. It’s important to remember that challenging behaviors are often an important form of communication.
Create a supportive environment – An environment where the individual is supported and connected is one where they will be actively engaged, will thrive, will learn, and will master skills and increase competencies. Individuals can get discouraged easily and can become disengaged. In these situations, a little support or assistance can go a long way. Other considerations for a supportive environment could include instruction and activities in novel locations, with persons that are preferred by the individual, and by attending to the individual’s preferences to the maximum extent possible.
Create Novelty – As stated earlier, novelty also helps increase engagement. When educators introduce something new, they provide opportunities for learning skills with a new item. In many cases, exploring a new item (or scenario, song, story, etc.) creates new opportunities for thinking, for understanding how things work, or connecting existing concepts in a new way. Novelty can also allow staff to engage the individual in a new way.
Be willing to share control of the instructional context – Clinicians or staff can ensure that choices are presented as often as possible. There is always a choice to be offered. For example, instead of saying “now it’s time to get dressed”, a staff can say, “Would you rather put on your shirt or your socks first?” It’s also important to find a way to say “Yes” to a request as often as possible. If an individual is asking for something that is unavailable, instead of saying “No,” staff can offer a different time when the item/activity is available. It is important to be as specific as possible.
In summary, if a provider, agency, or special education school wants to increase active engagement while being genuinely helpful, staff and clinicians should partner with the individuals and their team members in selecting goals, developing instructional procedures, and identifying meaningful outcomes. This is the essence of social validity and is essential to compassionate care.
Legare, G. (2002). Positive approaches as a paradigm. In Positive approaches: Identifying mental illness in people with developmental disabilities, (2nd Ed.) OMR Statewide Training and Technical Assistance Initiative.
Morris, C., Detrick, J. J., & Peterson, S. M. (2021). Participant assent in behavior analytic research: Considerations for participants with autism and developmental disabilities. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 54(4), 1300-1316. doi: 10.1002/jaba.859.
Rajaraman, A., Austin, J., Gover, H., Cammilleri, A., Donnelly, D., & Hanley, G. (2021). Toward trauma‐informed applications of behavior analysis. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 55(1), 40-61. 10.1002/jaba.881
Schramm, R. (2011). Motivation and reinforcement: Turning the tables on autism. Pro-ABA.
Parenti, K., & Rothman, H. (2023). What is the importance of engagement when working with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism? Science in Autism Treatment, 20(01).
About the Authors
Dr. Karen Parenti works as the CEO/Executive Director of Special Friends Foundation. She has extensive experience in ABA and in developing and overseeing group homes, day services, and rehabilitative programs for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and autism. She also serves as the treasurer of the MAX association’s board where she continues to advocate for the needs of the individuals she serves. Karen earned her Bachelor’s degree in psychology from York College of PA, her Master’s Degree in Human Services Administration from Springfield College in Wilmington, DE and her Doctorate Degree in Clinical Psychology from Immaculata University.
Heather Rothman works as the Director of Day Services for the Special Friends Foundation. She has worked with individuals with disabilities in a variety of settings and roles for over twenty years. Heather is committed to helping individuals with disabilities and Autism access choices, connect with their communities, and design the life they want. She is a Licensed Behavior Specialist with extensive experience with behavior support services in early intervention, school-aged, and adult populations. She designed and built a school-to-work transition program that won an international award for Variety-The Children’s Charity. She has taught at Penn State, developed trainings for the Public Health Management Corporation, and worked with Merrill Lynch on accessibility and community inclusion programs. She is passionate about universal accessibility and designing programs that create strong communities. Heather has her Bachelors of Arts in Organizational Management from Ashford University and a Master’s Degree in Applied Behavior Analysis from Saint Joseph’s University.
I was first introduced to the idea of prompting and fading when I co-ordinated a home based early learning program for my eldest son, Christopher, who is on the autism spectrum. I soon came to appreciate how important these strategies were and are in supporting his learning. We are now into his teenage years and whilst the skills he is learning are far more complex compared with those early years, the use and importance of prompting and fading remains unchanged.
About prompting
A prompt is a cue (or hint) given to a student to encourage them to learn a new skill. There is extensive evidenceto support my own experience that prompting is a highly effective way of teaching. An example of this evidence is noted at the end of this article.
Flashcards and prompting
A lot of the work we did around prompting with Christopher in the early years of his life related to the use of flashcards. We used them to expand his vocabulary, articulate words clearly and put together sentences. We also used them to build his academic skills in literacy and numeracy and his capacity for problem solving.
The different types of prompts
There are five different types of prompts and we used all of them in our flashcard based activities. These prompts are ranked accordingly to the level of support they offer, with 1 being the most supportive and five the least.
Full physical Example: I placed my hand over Christopher’s hand and guided him to place the flashcard he was holding over the associated one on the table – so the image of the sock was placed on top of the shoe, rather than on the image of the bed or the bowl
Partial physical Example: I gently touched Christopher’s shoulder – to indicate it was time for him to respond to my request of naming the flashcard I was showing him.
Modelling Example: I sorted the flashcards on the table into groups – animal, transport and instrument. I then shuffled the cards and asked Christopher to sort them in the same way
Gestural Example: I nodded as he started to place the letter A next to the image of the apple. It provided him with the encouragement and confidence to continue with B and C.
Positional Example: I placed two associated cards on the table next to one another so that Christopher could connect the two – so the picture of the fork was next to the picture of the person eating and the picture of the bed was next to the picture of the person sleeping
The goal is to select the type of prompt that is the least intrusive and results in the student providing the correct response. So, if a modelling prompt is not working then a partial or full physical prompt should be tried.
Why prompts need to be faded
Whilst prompts are a great teaching strategy, it is equally important that they be faded over time. You might ask why. The answer is so that the student doesn’t become dependent on the prompt. We were mindful of this in Christopher’s early learning program. There were instances where we started with a full hand over hand prompt. We then faded to a gestural prompt (by pointing at the flashcard) before omitting the prompt all together.
I like to think of prompting and fading as stepping stones on the way to independence with a new skill. Christopher and I have trod on those stones for a number of years now and going forward I know there will be more. I hope there will be more, As I’m so appreciative of the opportunities for learning they ultimately afford my son.
Citations
1 Hayes, D., (2013) The Use of Prompting as an Evidence Based Strategy to Support children with ASD in School Settings in New Zealand. ERIC 1-5
About The Author
Kate is the owner of Picture My Picture, an international business which specializes in educational flashcards. She is the mother of three boys, Christopher, Louis and Tom. Christopher is on the spectrum of Autism. The flashcard based teaching program she oversaw in the early years of his life was the inspiration for the business she owns today.
This article was originally posted on November 17, 2021 by Different Roads to Learning.
