Prompting, Prompt Fading, Modeling, Instructions, and Rules
Key Takeaways
- Prompts increase the likelihood of correct responding but must be faded to transfer control to natural stimuli.
- Prompt selection depends on learner history, error risk, response form, and implementation feasibility.
- Modeling and instructions can be efficient, but they require prerequisite skills and contact with consequences.
- Rules can guide behavior, but rule-governed behavior may not match direct contingencies unless checked with data.
Prompting as Stimulus Control Engineering
A prompt is an antecedent stimulus that increases the likelihood of a correct response. Prompts can be response prompts, such as physical guidance, modeling, or verbal cues. They can also be stimulus prompts, such as highlighting the correct comparison stimulus or changing its position.
Prompting is selected when the learner is unlikely to respond correctly under natural cues alone. It is not the final goal. The goal is transfer of stimulus control from the prompt to the relevant SD or natural cue. A plan without fading can create prompt dependence.
Prompt and Fading Choices
| Strategy | Best fit | Risk to monitor |
|---|---|---|
| Most-to-least | New or difficult skills, high error cost | Slow independence if fading lags |
| Least-to-most | Skills partly in repertoire | Repeated errors before stronger prompts |
| Time delay | Transfer from prompt to natural cue | Waiting too long or too short |
| Graduated guidance | Motor responses | Intrusive support if not faded |
| Stimulus fading | Discrimination training | Learner attends to irrelevant cues |
Modeling works when the learner can imitate the modeled response and the modeled action contacts reinforcement. It is efficient for social, motor, vocational, and daily living skills, but it is not enough when imitation is weak or the model is not salient.
Instructions and rules describe contingencies. They can produce rapid behavior change without waiting for every contingency to be contacted directly. However, rule-governed behavior can be insensitive to changing consequences, so data must show whether the rule is working in the natural context.
Selection Questions
Ask whether errors are harmful, whether the learner has the prerequisite imitation or listener skills, and whether staff can implement the sequence with integrity. For a high-risk safety skill, an errorless or most-to-least approach may be more defensible. For a skill already near mastery, least-to-most may promote independence.
Prompts should be paired with reinforcement for correct responding and faded according to performance data. If a learner responds only after an adult repeats a cue, the issue may be prompt dependence, weak reinforcement, unclear SDs, or criteria that moved too quickly.
A learner is acquiring a new handwashing chain and errors could interfere with hygiene. The analyst begins with full physical guidance, then fades to partial physical, gestural, and independent responding as data improve. Which prompt fading strategy is this?
A therapist asks, 'What is this?' while showing a picture. The learner often waits until the therapist says the first sound before answering. What is the main intervention concern?
A supervisor wants to teach a staff member to arrange materials for discrete-trial teaching. The staff member has strong imitation skills. Which procedure is most directly supported by that prerequisite?