Tag Archives: prompting to modify behavior

Prompt Fading For Parents

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This week, Leanne Page M.Ed, BCBA, offers advice on how to avoid prompt dependence. 

This piece originally appeared on bsci21.org.

“Dear Behavior BFF, I am not a parent myself but am writing you about my nephew. My sister and brother in law are constantly telling him what to say. “Tell her thank you. Say good morning. Say I want to eat dinner now.” I rarely hear the kid saying anything other than the exact words he is told to say. Is this normal? It seems like a terrible idea to me.”

The principles of behavior analysis can be helpful to anyone, not just parents.  What you are describing here is a high level of prompting that is likely leading to prompt dependence. The boy’s parents are giving so many prompts that he is not responding independently.

Is this normal? With parents – who knows?! We each do our own thing. We almost always start something with the purest of intentions as I’m sure your sister and brother in law have here. They want to help their son to speak, help him to participate in social interactions, and help him to learn to be respectful. But maybe they are helping too much.

It’s likely time for some prompt fading. When teaching new skills, it is common to start with high levels of prompting to help the learner practice success and receive positive reinforcement. But we can’t stay there forever. We have to fade out those prompts.

Other situations where parents are likely to over-prompt and be ready for some prompt fading strategies: toileting schedules and your child never initiates, always giving choices and never letting your child come up with a request independently, doing things hand over hand, doing daily living activities for your child, etc.

Step back one step on your prompts. Still provide a prompt, but scale it back a bit. Find where you are on this list and go down one.

  1. Full physical – hand over hand. Doing things FOR your child.
  2. Partial physical – still doing some parts hand over hand, but letting the child do some independently.
  3. Full verbal – telling them what to say as given in the original question above.
  4. Partial verbal – give part of the response, not the whole thing.
  5. Gestural – give a gesture or a cue

*This is not an exhaustive prompt hierarchy. There is more detail within behavior analysis but will stop here as parents are the intended audience and may not need that level of technicality.

Some ideas to fade out the full verbal prompt are to give an indirect or partial verbal prompt. From the examples you gave, instead, you could say:

“What do you say?”

“Do you need something?”

“Good ……”

Prompting your child can be a good thing, a great thing, even a research based thing. But when all you do all day is prompt- maybe it’s time to take a step back. Don’t drop the prompts all together. We still want to be sure the child is successful in each situation so they can gain reinforcement and see an increase of the desired behaviors in these situations.

Step back one prompting level at a time. When your child is successful at that level, step back again. Fade out the prompts until he is able to respond independently and the constant telling him what to say is a distant memory!

We barely scratched the surface on prompts and prompt fading. Here are some good places to start learning more about it!

Alberto, P. A., & Troutman, A. C. (2012). Applied behavior analysis for teachers. Pearson Higher Ed.

Cooper, J. (2009). 0., Heron, TE, & Heward, WL (2007). Applied behavior analysis.

MacDuff, G. S., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2001). Prompts and prompt-fading strategies for people with autism. Making a difference: Behavioral intervention for autism, 37-50.

About The Author

Leanne Page, MEd, BCBA, is the author of Parenting with Science: Behavior Analysis Saves Mom’s Sanity. As a Behavior Analyst and a mom of two little girls, she wanted to share behavior analysis with a population who could really use it- parents!

Leanne’s writing can be found in Parenting with Science and Parenting with ABA as well as a few other sites. She is a monthly contributor to bSci21.com , guest host for the Dr. Kim Live show, and has contributed to other websites as well.

Leanne has worked with children with disabilities for over 10 years. She earned both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Texas A&M University.  She also completed ABA coursework through the University of North Texas before earning her BCBA certification in 2011. Leanne has worked as a special educator of both elementary and high school self-contained, inclusion, general education, and resource settings.

Leanne also has managed a center providing ABA services to children in 1:1 and small group settings. She has  extensive experience in school and teacher training, therapist training, parent training, and providing direct services to children and families in a center-based or in-home therapy setting.

Leanne is now located in Dallas, Texas and is available for: distance BCBA and BCaBA supervision, parent training, speaking opportunities, and consultation. She can be reached via Facebook or at Lpagebcba@gmail.com.

 

Tip of the Week: How to Avoid Prompt Dependence in Teaching Students with Autism

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“She won’t say hi unless I say ‘Say Hello.’” “He will only wash his hands if I put his hand on the knob to turn on the water.” “He won’t use his fork until I put it in his hand.”

I hear statements like this all the time from both parents and providers working with learners what autism. What they are describing is “prompt dependence,” which is when a learner requires a prompt from a teacher or parent in order to complete a task. So how do you avoid prompt dependence with your own learners?

Let’s start with the prompt itself. There are many different ways to prompt which can be divided into levels by how intrusive the prompt is. Below is a sample of a prompt hierarchy, with the least intrusive prompt at the top and the most intrusive prompt at the bottom. Your goal is to quickly move through the prompt levels to move your learner to independence.

Now let’s look at two different examples to show these prompt levels. In the first example, the goal is for the learner to greet a person who walks into the room. In the second example, the goal is for the learner to pull up his/her pants after using the bathroom as a part of a toileting routine.

Research shows that least-to-most prompting increases potential for errors and slows down rate of acquisition for new skills. Therefore, most-to-least prompting is preferred for teaching new skills. This means that you would start at a full physical prompt and then move your way up the prompt hierarchy until your learner achieves independence with the task.

In the past, when working with discrete trials, it has been common practice to have a learner master a skill at a certain prompt level, then move to a less intrusive prompt and have the learner master the skill at that prompt level, steadily moving towards independence. This can actually encourage prompt dependence because the learner remains on the same prompt level for too long.

Instead, you should try to quickly move up the prompt hierarchy in a way that makes sense for the skill you are trying to teach. Below are some tips to help you help your learners achieve independence.

  • Follow the rule of three: Whether you are teaching with discrete trials or in the natural environment, once your learner has successfully responded to a demand three times consecutively, move to a less intrusive prompt.
  • If you are taking data, make a notation of what prompt level you are using at each step. (And remember, that only independent responses should be counted towards the learner’s percentage of correct responses.)
  • At the end of a session or group of trials, note what prompt level you were at by the end of the session. Then start at that level during the next session.
  • If your learner does not respond correctly when you move to a less intrusive prompt, then move back to the most recent prompt level. Once they respond again correctly at that prompt level three times consecutively, move again to a less restrictive prompt.
  • Remember that verbal prompts are very difficult to fade. Though they are less intrusive, you should avoid using them when possible.
  • You can pair prompts and then fade out the more intrusive prompts. For example, with the sample of pulling up pants described above, you can pair a visual prompt with a gestural prompt by showing the symbol for pulling up pants while pointing at the pants. Over time, you stop using the symbol and just use the gestural prompt. The gestural prompt can be faded by moving your point further and further away from the pants.
  • Write down what the prompt levels will look like for the specific task you are teaching. This way you will be fully prepared to quickly move your learner towards independence.
  • Differentiate your reinforcement! If you move to a less intrusive prompt and the learner responds correctly, then you should immediately provide a stronger reinforcer than you did for previous responses. If a learner spontaneously responds without a prompt, you should do what I call “throwing them a party” by combining reinforcers (such as tickles and high fives) or providing a highly desirable reinforcer.

Prompting can be very difficult to do well, but following these tips should help set your learner on the path to independence.

WRITTEN BY SAM BLANCO, MSED, BCBA

Sam is an ABA provider for students ages 3-12 in NYC. Working in education for ten years with students with Autism Spectrum Disorders and other developmental delays, Sam has developed strategies for achieving a multitude of academic, behavior, and social goals. Sam is currently pursuing her PhD in Applied Behavior Analysis at Endicott College.

Prompting Behavior Change: A Guest Post by Steve Levinson, PhD, Inventor of the MotivAider

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We’re thrilled to bring you this exclusive article written by Steve Levinson, PhD, Inventor of the incredible MotivAider. We’re all familiar with the incredible versatility of the MotivAider in facilitating behavior changes and here, Dr. Levinson explains how behavior modification works. We’re so grateful to Dr. Levinson for this fantastic article. You can find more exclusive articles from leading experts in the field in our new catalog.

Prompting Behavior Change by Steve Levinson, PhD

If you’re a parent or a teacher who’s trying to change a child’s behavior, you’re probably frustrated. It’s not easy to change a child’s behavior. But before you blame the child, consider this: It’s not all that easy to change your own behavior either! Even when you have a good reason to make a particular change, and you’re really serious about doing it, changing your own behavior is rarely a snap.

Why it’s so hard to change behavior  So, what makes it so hard to change behavior? If you think it’s simply a matter of motivation, think again. Motivation is certainly important, but many behavior change attempts fail not because of insufficient motivation. They fail because of insufficient focus.

You can’t change your own behavior unless you can keep your attention focused on making the desired change. While it’s easy to do things the old way because the old way is automatic, doing things the new way requires focus.

Unfortunately, whether you’re a parent, a teacher or a child, it’s not easy to stay focused. That’s because, amazingly, the human mind has no built-in mechanism to keep our attention focused on making the changes we want to make. So it’s really no wonder that our good intentions keep getting lost in the shuffle.

If you’re not convinced that (1) focus is an essential ingredient in the recipe for behavior change and (2) we’re not well-equipped to stay focused on the changes we want to make, here’s an example that should help. Suppose you have a bad habit of slouching. You realize that slouching is not only bad for your back, it’s bad for your image. So you promise yourself that from now on that you’ll sit up straight and stand up tall. How hard could that be? Yet soon—very soon—after setting out to improve your posture, you’re right back to slouching.

So, what happened? Did you lose your motivation? No. You lost your focus! You failed to make a change you genuinely wanted to make because you simply couldn’t keep your attention focused on making it.Yes, it’s hard to change behavior because changing behavior requires focus, and none of us—not parents, not teachers and especially not children—are particularly well-equipped to stay focused.

So what can we do to stay more focused on the positive changes we want to make? And what can we do to help our children or our students stay focused on the positive changes they want to make?

Prompting: A simple way to facilitate behavior change  One solution is to use “prompting.” Prompting is a simple behavior change method that uses frequently repeated signals to keep your attention focused on making a desired change.

To illustrate how and why prompting works, let’s return to the posture example we used earlier. Only this time, after you promise yourself that you’ll sit up straight and stand up tall from now on, I’m going to follow you around and every few minutes—whether you’re slouching or not—tap you on the shoulder and whisper in your ear, “You’re no slouch.”

With me reminding you frequently, I guarantee that you’ll stay focused on improving your posture. What’s more, soon I’ll be able to stop whispering because just feeling the tap on your shoulder will be all it takes to send you the associated message, “Yes, I’m no slouch.” Sometimes when you feel the tap, you’ll find yourself slouching, and you’ll straighten up right away. Other times when you feel the tap, you’ll notice that your posture is already fine. It doesn’t matter whether you catch yourself slouching or you catch yourself with perfect posture. Either way, you’ll be making progress in replacing your bad posture habit with a good posture habit. Before long, you’ll automatically be sitting up straight and standing up tall.

Fortunately, there’s a more practical and even more effective way to use prompting. Instead of relying on a dedicated person to follow you around and keep tapping you on the shoulder, all you really need to implement basic prompting is a timer or other mechanical or electronic means that’s capable of sending you frequent private signals automatically. The process is simple. First, you devise a brief personal message that urges you to make the change you want to make. Then, you associate the personal message with the signal—the same way we associated “You’re no slouch” with a tap on the shoulder in the example above. The result is that whenever you receive the signal, you’ll focus your attention on making the change you want to make. And by making certain that you receive signals often enough, you’ll stay focused.

Prompting isn’t magic, but it can do amazing things. What’s more, because it allows us to overcome an obstacle that all of us—parents, teachers and children—share, it’s remarkably versatile. The same simple method that can be used to help a young child do a better job of staying on task can also be used to help parents and teachers consistently stick to an effective technique they forget to use when they’re busy or frustrated. The same simple method that can be used to help a child make a constructive keystone change in her social behavior can also be used to help parents and teachers stay cool, calm, collected, and constructive when interacting with a defiant child.