Prompting involves giving extra help to enable the patient to perform a specific response so that it can be reinforced.
A prompt is a stimulus or “hint” presented in addition to the SD to assist the patient in providing a correct response.
This diagram may help you understand what we mean when we say a prompt is an additional stimulus. It’s something we say or do, in addition to the SD, to help the patient respond.
SD | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R | ⇨ | SR |
Prompt |
The stimulus that evokes a response through pairing (stimulus → response → reinforcement) eventually comes to have stimulus control over a response. Prompts are supplementary stimuli that will temporarily have stimulus control over a response.
EXAMPLE
In this case, Jake does not know how to respond to the instruction or SD, “Sit down.” To teach Jake to respond to this instruction, the behavior technician physically guides the patient to respond.SD: "Sit Down." | ||||
+ | ⇨ | Jake sits. | ⇨ | SR: Give Jake chip. |
Physically guide Jake. |
The prompt differs from the SD in that the prompt does not stand on its own. You present a prompt with an SD to help the patient respond.
EXAMPLE
In this case, the instruction was given to get a toothbrush. To teach the patient to respond to this instruction, the behavior technician points to the toothbrush to indicate where the patient needs to look to get it.SD: "Get your toothbrush." | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: Child picks up toothbrush. | ⇨ | SR: "Great job, buddy!" and high five. |
Point to toothbrush. |
EXAMPLE
In this case, Jacob can’t expressively label or say, “Car,” when he sees a car. To teach Jacob to respond to this SD, the behavior technician vocally gives the patient the answer as the first step in teaching the patient to expressively label the car.SD: Hold up picture. | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Tickle Jacob. |
"Car." |
OK, I'm going to show you how to do it. And I'm going to stand right behind you. I'm going to tilt the paper because it makes it easier that way. And then I'm just going to guide your hand slowly. OK? So we're going to go all the way up to the top and then come down and around. Perfect.
OK.
That's all.
Thank you.
Prompts are used by all individuals to help us perform tasks and be more successful in various situations. We use prompts in ABA for several reasons:
Many different types of prompts exist (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2020). During this training, we will discuss and provide examples of eight of the most commonly used prompts for teaching patients with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
1. Physical Prompt
A physical prompt involves manual guidance of the patient to facilitate a correct response, in one of two ways:
EXAMPLE
A full physical prompt might involve helping a patient write their name hand over hand, while a partial physical prompt might involve only guiding their hand to the paper.2. Gestural Prompt
A gestural prompt refers to gesturing in some way with your body to indicate the correct response to the patient. The behavior technician points, nods their head, or gazes notably to indicate target stimulus.
EXAMPLE
The behavior technician says “Give me blue,” and points to the blue card.EXAMPLE
The behavior technician says “Find fish,” and glances at the toy fish.OK. Thank you. Come sit down in the chair. Oh, good job.
[WATER RUNNING]
Nicolas, over here. What letter--
3. Model Prompt
Model prompts involve providing a physical demonstration of the desired behavior for the patient to imitate.
EXAMPLE
“I’ll show you how to first, then you do it!”EXAMPLE
The behavior technician says “Take off sock,” and takes off their own sock.4. Echoic Prompt
An echoic prompt means providing vocal demonstration of the desired behavior for the patient to imitate, in one of the following ways:
EXAMPLE
“What is your name?” “Marie!”EXAMPLE
“What color is this?” “Blue!”EXAMPLE
“What is your name?” “Ma…”EXAMPLE
“What color is this?” “Bl…”How old is Jack? Say I'm two.
I two.
Yay! Good job.
Say here we go.
There go.
Yeah. Good talking. Very good.
Nice job, [INAUDIBLE]. That looks beautiful.
Mine is better than yours.
Is it better than mine?
Yes.
It looks beautiful. Should you circle that one?
Is it the best?
It is the best.
Is it better than yours?
You can say it looks so good.
It looks so good.
It does. Are you proud of yourself?
Yep.
You should be. It's beautiful. Let's try another one.
5. Directive Prompt
Directive prompts involve giving verbal instructions to guide the patient’s behavior. They may include textual, visual, or other verbal cues, such as directions on how to do something, like how to make a snack, how to prepare to do homework, etc.
EXAMPLE
The behavior technician rolls a ball to the patient. The behavior technician says “Push,” and makes the pushing motion with their hand to demonstrate.EXAMPLE
“What is your name?” “Say ‘Marie.’”Good. Remember, go all the way to the wall, OK?
Yeah.
There you go. There you go. All the way to the wall. Perfect
What did I do for you?
Thank you.
Awesome. Thank for saying thank you. Can you look at my eyes?
Thank you.
You're welcome.
--How to play with her.
Try again. Go over there and walk back to her again. Jack Riley, come back. Walk nicely to her.
Step back.
Walk nicely. Oh yeah. High five. Yeah! You did it. She's so happy.
Ask him again.
Have you ever been to South Dakota?
No.
So you could say, have you? Liam, stop.
Have you?
I've never been to South Dakota.
Me neither.
Cool.
6. Proximity Prompt
Proximity prompts refer to altering the location or placement of a stimulus to facilitate a desired response, such as placing the answer closer to your patient in a DTT program.
EXAMPLE
The behavior technician places a lemon and a banana in front of the patient. They make sure that the patient will respond correctly by placing the lemon closer to the patient than the banana. The behavior technician says “Give me lemon.”EXAMPLE
The behavior technician places the patient’s shoes by the front door, and when standing at the door to go outside, asks the patient, “What do you need to put on before we go outside?”OK. Are you ready? OK. Point to the one that means school crossing. Nice job. That's right. That one means school crossing. Great job.
7. Stimulus Manipulation Prompt
With a stimulus manipulation prompt, the behavior technician changes some aspect of the target stimulus (for example, color, size, shape), such as making the target response larger than the distracter items.
EXAMPLE
The behavior technician wants the patient to identify the word "Dog" from an array of three words: Dog, Cat, Pig. The behavior technician prints the word "Dog" in color (blue) while the other words are in black and white.Touch orange. Super! Touch orange. Wow! Touch orange. Wow! That was so good. Touch orange. Super job! Touch orange. Wow! Super job! Touch orange. Yeah, you did it!
Touch orange. Oh wow! Way to go, sweetie! Touch orange. That was so good. That was so good! That was so good!
Touch orange. Oh my goodness! Super! High five! Touch orange. Oh, so smart. You are such a smarty pants!
Touch orange. Whoa! You did it! That was super duper!
Touch orange. Oh! Wow!
8. Visual and Textual Prompts
With a visual or textual prompt, the behavior technician shows a picture or object (visual) or a word (textual) to the patient to evoke the correct response.
EXAMPLE
The behavior technician asks “What has fur?” and shows a flash card with a picture of a dog when the target response is “Dog.”OK, so are you ready to make coffee?
Yeah.
All right. So here's the instructions. Go ahead and read the instructions and follow the steps, OK?
OK. Put filter in. Two scoops of ground in.
All right. Feet out, please. What's today's date?
13.
Nice job.
Good job! I love how you--
OK, so who wants to start the conversation? OK, go ahead.
Do you like cool toys?
All right, I'm going to tell you a story. And I want you to listen really closely, OK?
OK.
On Monday, Phineas and Ferb went to the carnival, and they ate cotton candy and rode on the Ferris wheel. They had a lot of fun. OK, Andre. Who went?
Phineas and Ferb.
Oh, good listening, my friend. Way to go.
The most important thing about prompting is that it has to work. It must help the patient make the correct response.
The second most important thing about prompting is that you have to get rid of it! So, as soon as a prompt starts to work, you should start removing it. The process by which prompts are removed is called prompt fading, defined as the systematic removal of a prompt across successive trials.
This two-part process consists of
This may involve fading one specific prompt or various types of prompts. Fading is critical in order to avoid prompt dependency.
EXAMPLE
Let’s look back at a case. Jacob can’t expressively label or say, “Car,” when he sees a car. To teach Jacob to respond to this SD, the behavior technician vocally gives the patient the answer as the first step in teaching the patient to expressively label the car.SD: Hold up picture. | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Tickle Jacob. |
"Car." |
If the behavior technician always vocally gives the patient the answer, the patient will never learn to say, “Car,” on his own when he sees a car. So, once Jacob can respond, “Car,” when the behavior technician uses this prompt, the behavior technician will need to start fading the prompt. The picture slide will show us how the behavior technician can fade the prompt.
SD: Hold up picture. | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Tickle Jacob. |
"Car." |
SD: Hold up picture. | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Sing to Jacob. |
"Ca..." |
SD: Hold up picture. | ||||
+ | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Tickle Jacob. |
"C..." |
SD: Hold up picture. | ⇨ | R: "Car" | ⇨ | SR: Give Jacob chip. |
Prompting can also be faded using delays before the prompt is delivered, called a time delay prompt. When teaching manding (requesting an item), you may hold up a preferred item and wait for the patient to say the name of the item. During initial acquisition, you will likely need to prompt the patient to say the name of the item, perhaps with a vocal model. Zero time delay would involve giving an immediate vocal model as soon as the patient makes any kind of initiation toward the item (such as pointing, reaching, or looking). The vocal model can be faded out by gradually increasing the delay between the patient’s initiation to the preferred item and your delivery of the prompt. This is called a progressive time delay, as you gradually increase the delay between the instruction and the prompt.
You might also use a constant time delay procedure, where the delay of a particular length or duration is always used, regardless of the stage of the training.
EXAMPLE
You always wait ten seconds to present the vocal model. By doing this, you are essentially providing the patient with a choice: sit and wait ten seconds, respond to the prompt, and then get the reinforcer, or they can respond immediately and get the reinforcer sooner.