Essential Reading
Follow this link to the Virginia Department of Education’s Centre for Training and Technical Assistance. You will find an overview of prompting and prompt fading with some useful tips for practice.
Virginia Department of Education.(n.d.). Prompts and Prompt Fading. Retrieved November 11, 2021, from https://ttac.odu.edu/autism/prompts-and-prompt-fading-for-building-independence/
Essential Video
Hacking Behavior Analysis. (2021, October 10). Prompting|Prompt Fading|Errorless Learning [Video]. YouTube
Optional Reading
In the below supervision meeting, Dinah (an RBT) is asking Susan (her supervising BCBA) about prompt fading. The talk about using prompt fading in the context of Discrete Trial Teaching (an ABA teaching format you’ll learn more about later in this course).
Dinah: Hi Susan! I have a question about prompt fading. I’ve been learning about Discrete Trial Training (DTT) and how prompts are used, but I’m curious about how you know when to fade prompts. Can you guide me on that?
Susan: Absolutely, Dinah! Fading prompts in DTT requires using data and mastery criteria to make informed decisions. By collecting and analyzing data, we can determine when a learner is ready for prompt fading.
Dinah: That sounds interesting, Susan. Can you explain to me how you use data and mastery criteria to decide when to fade prompts?
Susan: Certainly, Dinah! Data is collected during teaching sessions to determine the learner’s progress and when they are exhibiting the behavior consistently in the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. Mastery criteria, which are predetermined performance levels set by the behavior analyst, help to identify when the learner has reached a specific level of competence. When the learner meets the mastery criteria consistently, it indicates that they can perform the behavior at the target level and are ready for prompt fading.
Dinah: I see, Susan. So, it’s about using data to track the learner’s progress and mastery criteria to determine when they are ready for prompt fading. Can you give me an example of how you used data and mastery criteria to fade prompts?
Susan: Certainly, Dinah! Let’s say I was teaching a child to identify familiar people by their names. I initially starting by presenting three pictures of familiar people, saying their name and then used a full gestural prompt by pointing to a picture of the correct person. During each teaching session, I collected data on the child’s responses, noting how often they responded correctly or incorrectly. I also set mastery criteria, in this case 90% correct responses with a gestural prompt for two consecutive sessions. They initially made mistakes, but within four sessions, they had managed to meet that mastery criteria.
At this point, I revised the teaching plan. The only change I made was that they only received reinforcement, if they pointed to the right person when I used a fleeting gestural prompt. When I was using a full gestural prompt, I pointed to the correct person and I continued to point to the picture until the child pointed to a picture. With a fleeting gestural prompt, I asked them to point to a person, then pointed for one second to the correct picture, before I stopped pointing ? even when the child had not started to respond. This was a less intense prompt than the full gestural prompt so that?s why we can say I faded the prompt.
?When they met the 90% correct criteria, I changed the teaching protocol again. This time, they only received reinforcement when the pointed to the correct person without any prompts. When they responded with 90% of opportunities correct for 2 consecutive sessions without any prompts, I knew that they had mastered the target. ?
Dinah: It’s fascinating how you use data and mastery criteria to guide prompt fading and ensure that the learner is demonstrating the behavior independently. It?s very systematic!
Susan: Absolutely, Dinah! Data and mastery criteria are crucial tools for both tracking progress and making informed decisions about prompt fading. It helps us determine when a learner has acquired the necessary skills and is ready to respond independently without prompts.
Dinah: Thank you for explaining the process, Susan. It’s helpful to understand how you use data and mastery criteria to fade prompts in a systematic and data-driven manner.
In this linked article by Christan Griffin, M.Ed., BCBA, you can read more about prompt hierarchies and prompt fading. There are some useful examples of how prompt fading might be used in practice.
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