Prompting In the Classroom

CONSIDERATIONS WHEN PROMPTING  Ensure the student is attending before presenting an instruction.  IndividualizedSupport -The type of prompt used will depend on the skill being taught, as well as the student’s current skill set.  Inadvertent Prompts -Avoid unintentional prompts such as positioning of materials, voice inflection, facial expressions, and/or eye gaze.  Differential Reinforcement -Provide greater levels of reinforcement for independent responses over prompted responses.  Plan to Fade Prompts -Fade prompts as quickly as possible while still allowing the student to be successful.  Monitor Student Success -Ensure the student is meeting success.  Consider Your Prompt -Ensure that the prompt you choose focuses the student’s attention on the instruction and does not distract from it. -Begin with the least intrusive prompt you can. -Verbal prompts are the least intrusive; however, they are the most difficult prompt to fade. Least to Most prompting is ideal for practicing mastered skills. Most to least prompting is ideal for teaching new skills. PROMPT FADING Prompt fading is the process of systematically reducing and removing prompts that have been paired with an instruction, allowing the student to independently respond correctly. Prompt fading requires being able to fade a prompt quickly enough that the student does not become dependent on that prompt, but slowly enough that the student remains successful. There are three elements to fading out prompts: physical, time delay and proximity to the student. 1. Physical: This includes fading a full physical prompt to a partial physical prompt, as well as decreasing the level of intrusiveness following the prompt hierarchy using most-to-least prompting. For example, if modeling the correct response (touching a named province on a map) was a successful prompt, one could plan to fade to a less physically intrusive prompt of using a gesture (pointing to a named province on a map). 2. TimeDelay:Thisfadestheuseofpromptsbygraduallyincreasing the length of time between the instruction and the delivery of a prompt. 3. Proximity to the Student: Systematically changing spatial position in relation to the student (see Fading Prompts by Proximity image).