Increasing Assistance

"Is the Word You're Thinking About Called Prom..."

How to use prompting to increase the probability that a desired behavior will occur.

In this example, the teacher’s practice of increasing assistance comes from a wider understanding of prompting, which she uses throughout the lesson in order to guide students to a correct answer.

Prompting: is an effective practice to increase success and generalizability of target skills or behaviors for learners with ASD.

Over the course of the lesson, the teacher uses all five of these types of prompting: verbal, gestural, visual, positional, and physical.”

  • VERBAL: Verbal prompts are words instructions or questions that direct a learner to engage in a target response. Verbal prompts should be simple and explicit. Verbal prompts will range from saying the entire word or phrase that you are trying to elicit from the learner, to providing only the first sound or syllable to cue the learner. We encourage you to use the vocabulary and language being taught in the learning modules to keep things consistent.
  • GESTURAL: Gestural prompts includes pointing to, looking at, motioning or nodding to indicate a correct response. These are easy to become dependent on when teaching a learner how to interact with a computer. We encourage you to use the vocabulary and language being taught in the learning modules to keep things consistent.
  • MODELING: You can act out of the target behavior or have the learner’s peer act it out to encourage the learner to imitate. Modeling can be done in full or the behavior can be partially modeled. Modeling may also include verbal prompts.
  • POSITIONAL: Positional prompting involves arranging given materials so that the correct item is close to or in front of the learner. For example, if a task consists of picking a picture of an object from a group of three pictures, you might initially arrange the pictures so that the correct choice is directly in front of your learner, while the two incorrect choices are on the other side of the table. As your learner progresses, the other cards can be gradually moved closer until they are even with the correct choice.
  • PHYSICAL: Tactile prompting involves actually touching the child. A full physical prompt might involve moving the child through the entirety of the behavior (for example, moving his hand to select the right card from an array, and then moving it further to hand the card to you or someone else). A partial physical prompt might be just touching a hand or shoulder to get the child started on the behavior.

Here are additional links to help you implement using evidenced-based practices.

Download the Evidence-based Practices Webinar Presentation

Download Digitability Program & Curriculum Overview

Digitability Evidence-based Practices Stage 1 Guide Sample

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