Ep. 41: Prompt Dependence – Effective Strategies for Building Student Independence

🎯 Key Takeaways
✔️ Prompt Dependence Defined: Understanding prompt dependence and its impact on students’ ability to act independently.
✔️ Choosing the Right Prompting Strategy: Not all learners benefit from the same prompts! Learn how to assess if most-to-least or least-to-most is right for your learner.
✔️ The Power of the Pause: Pausing before prompting gives learners a chance to respond independently, which is key for fostering confidence and autonomy.
✔️ Prompt Fading Tips: Systematic fading strategies, including time delay, encourage independence by gradually removing prompts as learners build confidence.
✔️ Reinforcement Matters: Reinforce independent responses more than prompted ones to build self-reliance. Independence should always yield the biggest reward!

For you!
✔️ Caitlin's Prompt Hierarchy freebie (Beltran's Behavior Basics)
✔️ Audra's Prompt Hierarchy freebie (ABA in School on TPT)

📚 Resources
Books on Prompt Fading
“The Power of Our Words” by Paula Denton
“Behavioral Support Strategies for Education Paraprofessionals” by Will Henson Psy.D.

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Transcript

Caitlin: [00:00:00] It's not always cut and dry, but once you get to know your learners, for me, it's always been pretty intuitive knowing, okay, this learner really needs me to prompt from the beginning because otherwise he's building in errors every day he just doesn't know what I'm asking him to do. 

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist Podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hey, welcome back to The Misfit Behaviorists. I've got a guest today, Caitlin, went kind of MIA with the beginning of the school year and everything. We're still kind of chewing on the idea of creating a course at some point. We just haven't pinned that down because it just takes time and figuring things out. But we are here to hear what Caitlin has to say about the beginning of her school year, what's going on and what you want to talk about today.

Caitlin: I've been totally off the grid. September 1st, I was like, give me a minute. And then, here we are. But I want to talk about a question I've seen floated around in [00:01:00] our group, a couple other Facebook groups, and that is the topic of prompt dependence. Specifically in our learners with autism and kind of how to address that.

Audra: I remember so many times, so many kids I worked with, the classic one of like holding up their hand and waiting for you to give them what to do. I think we're so much better about backing off of those touching of the hands prompts. I love the new idea of going hand under hand instead of hand over hand. So when you have to do some sort of guided correction or prompt, That now we're doing hand underhand instead of over, which just, I love that so much better. 

Caitlin: I do love that. I love that a lot. Yeah, so just to, you know, kick us off, when I think of prompt dependence, it's the same thing. That hand hovering over, what do you want me to do with it, kind of looking at you out of the corner of your eye. But really, it's any time we have that learner who has become reliant on our prompt in any way to complete the chain or the action that they're doing. And I've seen it in kids globally where they're [00:02:00] prompt dependent with almost everything they do and they need the extra nudge and they need the, okay, keep going, or the verbal. Or I have seen it with some kids where they develop it really specific to a routine, like I can do everything with toothbrushing except I'm going to wait until I get the nudge to put the toothbrush away. Obviously, we know how important this is to address because if you can't complete the routine independently, at the end of the day, it doesn't always matter if you needed like one verbal prompt or 75 prompts of any kind, you can't complete it independently. So we do have to remember that. It can really be just as significant as any maladaptive behavior, including like a physical disruption or something like that, because if it's interfering with the independent routine, it's going to make that learner not successful with that in the real world. 

Audra: I think we deal with it in real life, too. Do we wait to be asked to do something by our husband or spouse, or does it become a natural part of our, you know, and if you're getting to the point where you're having to ask your husband to take out the trash every single week, and he's not [00:03:00] doing it, he's dependent on that prompt. Yeah, it just doesn't feel good, so you want that independence of the husband or whoever else you're working with, though, just independence.

Caitlin: Yes, I mean, I'm a, I'm a behaviorist, so in my household, we don't have that problem. No, joking,

Audra: If only life worked like that. 

Caitlin: But you know, I have my sneaky little prompts where I'm like, Oh, wait, you know, let me, let me try to beat this out. 

Audra: It becomes more indirect, like, Hmm, it looks like the other people have their garbage out at the curb. That's interesting. 

Caitlin: Yeah, it would be a good time to review just the common methods that we do prompt across the board in teaching and everyday routines, because that's where it all starts. So I think you hit the nail on the head in the beginning. I know when I was trained years ago, everybody was using that classic prompt hierarchy. And not to say there's anything wrong with that, but you had your physical, you had your minimal physical, and we used that with every student and every skill, kind of no matter what. There wasn't a lot of thought that, like, this student benefits from this prompt. We would do [00:04:00] that reactively, rather than proactively, and we would just move through systematically, and it worked for a lot of learners, particularly those who didn't respond great to physical prompts or who weren't prone to prompt dependency, but that's where we saw a lot of prompt dependency when we tried to make that final switch from the least, uh, intrusive prompt to independence, and then we'd see that learner wait and wait and wait. And I think it also goes back to how we were prompting and the type of prompt and style, but also our level of reinforcement and possibly building in reinforcement way too early or more heavily reinforcing tasks that were prompted versus independent. And I know for me, it was a good learning experience seeing how it wasn't always effective because I was able to use that later on and like you said, as we grew as a field in knowing what prompts to use and how and when, but also that differential reinforcement piece of how that independent response is always the biggest reinforcement. [00:05:00] It always leads to the greatest rewards if possible. Because otherwise we're creating a culture where, okay, if you do it with, yay, and if you do it all by yourself, awesome, like there's no difference, and to that learner, it's like, meh, well the same, I just, I'll have you help me.

Audra: I think we've done better about this too of deciding whether we're going prompt heavy back to minimal or we're starting no prompt and then prompting when needed because you have a, you know, a particular learner who is tends to be prompt dependent. If you start heavy prompting right away. And you try to back off of that, that's going to be harder, then you have the other student who makes a lot of errors and then you can't correct them, then you don't want to start with a minimal prompt, so you kind of have to navigate and balance what kind of a learner do I have, what kind of a prompt system should I use, it kind of depends on what the learner is.

Caitlin: Exactly, it's exactly where I was headed next. We talked about that a lot as I was ending my time at Douglas, where whichever prompt hierarchy, whichever way you're using it, whether you're using it most to least or least to most, kind of just the idea, like don't [00:06:00] forget you don't have to hit all the prompts. There's no one watching out of the corner of the room saying don't forget about the gesture. So if you have a learner and we would talk about the idea of like the controlling prompt, what is the least intrusive prompt I can use to get this learner to respond correctly? And I'm thinking of a lot of students in my classrooms off the top of my head that I never have to use anything more than like a gesture or point or even like a stimulus cue of placing the target closer. So that being the case, I think now, of course, we know it's fairly obvious. Okay, then the most intrusive prompt I'm ever going to use is a gesture. But again, back in the day, it was like, all right, physical, minimal physical. So it's that idea of being really creative in how we're prompting and also thinking about, am I starting with that gesture and fading out, like you said? Or am I just getting a probe every day and then adding as I need to? And I think it's not always cut and dry, but once you get to know your learners, for me, it's always been pretty intuitive knowing, okay, this learner really needs me to [00:07:00] prompt from the beginning because otherwise he's building in errors every day he just doesn't know what I'm asking him to do. Versus this learner is very prone to prompt dependency and I'm going to really try to back off, give them a chance to respond, and maybe add the prompt in after the fact if I need to. 

Audra: There are also times in different clinical models that I've been in where they use a data where they're taking data on just that prompt level. And I found that that's exactly what they're building is that prompt dependency because they're just constantly giving that particular prompt and not giving that chance for there to be a correct response with a lesser prompt. It's pretty rare that I would need to take data on prompts. I'd really just take correct or incorrect or prompted because I don't care about all that. I just want to take data on the correct response. But once in a while, if I had to really break it down with prompt level, I would say that the prompt and then anything less than that prompt. So if I was taking a data on, you know, a particular skill and I knew the prompt level that I wanted to be at [00:08:00] was, you know, uh, a gesture was going to be correct. It would be gesture and anything more independent, than that would be correct response and only the higher level response prompt would be incorrect. And so it is just building in the whole time, always assuming that they're going to be more independent than you're even expecting it out of them. Just always expecting they can do this, always presuming competence in the learner, no matter where you are in the prompt hierarchy or whatever skill you're working on. 

Caitlin: I think too not always, but oftentimes, you know, very early classrooms, like our preschool students, I'm tending to start with more prompts. And carefully, systematically fading them out because I don't want to embed prompt dependency. But I'm really teaching them the skill. I'm teaching them how to learn. I'm teaching them how to sit and attend and discriminate. So that's where I feel like our prompts are really meaningful. Whereas, again, not a cut and dry rule, but oftentimes as the learners are getting older, they know the back and forth. They know how to attend and discriminate. Now I can be really [00:09:00] careful about maybe only prompting as needed or using those more least to most prompts because I'm focusing on their independence a lot more than those building block skills. 

Audra: Think about those little preschoolers coming in the first days of school and learning to put their coat up and their cubby and their backpack and get the things out. You're an octopus in those first few days. Seriously, like hand over hand trying to help everybody at once and not because they're incapable. It's just they don't know what to do. And they might not have the language to say, okay, put your backpack here. They may not know that yet. If you have, you know, four paras around you doing this, you have to teach them immediately. You're going to do a lot of that in the beginning, but start backing off. Don't continue to do that. Use the pause, you know, just take a moment to watch and see where their behavior is. Are they getting it? Can I take a step back? You know, the whole time it's just, it's okay. Just take a moment. And let them sit for a moment and process what the environment is telling them and see if they do it. 

Caitlin: Yes, I love that. The idea of it really being dynamic and that's hard because unless it's a scale where like, Oh, this week we're taking data on this or this is [00:10:00] their IEP goal. I find sometimes more of the everyday routines are the ones that's like harder to step back and think, Oh, maybe it's possible they already know this. And just because I had to prompt them all last week, I can step back a minute. 

Audra: We're so quick for us to just help them do it. 

Caitlin: Right. And everyone wants to feel useful and, you know, help everyone, but are we helping by just jumping in all the time? And sometimes, yes. Like if you have a learner, like you said, I could stay in there all day. They're never going to understand. Oh, I want you to put your backpack on the hook. I have to show them. Now, let's just say, Audra, you have a learner who knows the routine at this point and they come in and they take their coat off and they start to give you that look, hold it by the cubby. What would be your go to strategy, like your advice for that parent?

Audra: My go to would be to just sort of get distracted by something else and just give that pause to show that I'm not sitting there staring at them because they're looking for that engagement and be just like, I'm playing with this thing or something, and just give them a moment to see that, Well, you can do that.

Caitlin: Now, how long would you wait that out for? 

Audra: Depends on the [00:11:00] kid. 

Caitlin: I have had students, and I don't know about you, they would play that game for a very long time. And those were the ones where my favorite was to kind of like, I'm doing the same thing, like, Oh, is that the sun coming? You know, but I'm like, like, Hey, you put your coat in your cubby. I'm fading out that same prompt. And that's like a nuance. 

Audra: I think that's great. The other one I like to use, depending on the learner, everything's always depending on the learner, but doing silly. So like Oh, that's right. You put your backpack in the toilet or something totally ridiculous.

Caitlin: I think at the end of the day, I feel like sometimes just looking for that control of like, can I make you stop what you're doing? Look at me. And so any way that I can change that up, even if it's just not giving you eye contact, not giving you verbal direction, making it silly. I know with one particular learner I did, this was back in the day, but I had a BCBA at the time who helped me research the idea of a time delay prompt procedure and that was really eye opening for me in the realm of [00:12:00] using that with a learner who was very prompt dependent and it was very successful with that learner and we waited the pause, but we really had that systematic plan from the beginning because, like I said, I think three different people could wait that out in three different ways. And I've had staff who were like, oh, they're prompt dependent. I'm going to wait them out. And then like an hour goes by and I'm like, oh my God, tell me you're still not standing by the cubby waiting for them to put their coat in. That's not what I meant. So that idea of maybe, uh, and it could look like a progressive time delay or a constant time delay. You know, pick your poison. But where I'm waiting a specific interval of time. Then, if they are not responding during that time, I am providing a discrete prompt, but they're only getting reinforced depending on what part of that program I'm at. So, if it's in the beginning, maybe they're getting the reinforcement, but then, over time, they don't just have to do it correctly and independently, they have to beat the prompt. And so, they're learning the most valuable reinforcer comes when I do it by myself and kind of quickly, too. 

Audra: And then you're also bringing [00:13:00] data back into it. It's like, are you going to start that, but are you going to take baseline data beforehand to know where you're going to start that time delay in the beginning? So there, we're going back to just our basic, take some data to start with. How long will they wait? You know, I wait them out for a couple of days and see, are we talking about four hours? Are we talking about, you know, 20 seconds? That's what it started about. 

Caitlin: Yes. All comes back to just knowing our learner. And I think once we do know our learner having that plan, and that's where I think it's for one student, most to least prompting, for another student, least to most without a time delay. Once we have that kind of figured out, making sure it's really systematic and it's not just like, Oh yeah, we're giving the pause today, but see if they can do it tomorrow. And having the prompt fading plan from the beginning can also help us feel more confident and just consistent in our approach. I guess it wouldn't be a complete episode if we didn't mention visual cues, right? Making sure that we have our SD, our cue, whatever you're calling it nowadays, it may or may not be verbal. We have our prompts, they might be physical, they might be [00:14:00] stimulus prompts. But also building in those, depending on the question, it could be a visual prompt or just a visual cue. A lot of times with older learners, like that unpacking can turn into a visual checklist. And then it's like, I'm not prompting to your cubby, I'm prompting to your list. Because once you find and start your list, I can kind of chain that and chunk that together so it's more seamless. 

Audra: You could also use transition, like tokens or whatever you're using for the transition. So if it's, say we're back to the cubby thing, you're like, Okay, well, you know, it looks like reading class is next, that's your favorite thing to do, or whatever, and you can see that that step has to happen before you can get to this, and so that's their cue to get it done.

Caitlin: I'm glad you circled back to that, the idea of like the reward, the reinforcer, like we can prompt all we want, but unless that reinforcer is meaningful and coming really thoughtfully at the right time, we're not going to quite get there, so that's really a pivotal piece of the puzzle. So I think some takeaways for us would just be the idea of being really systematic and thorough, really thoughtful when you start to really get to know your learner and figuring out which [00:15:00] types of not just which types of prompts work best, but also which type of prompt hierarchy, which way you're using that. The idea of maybe considering a time delay and remembering to have those visual cues, but most importantly, whatever you land on, making sure it's a systematic plan from the start, and then using data to make changes as needed.

Audra: Well, you know where to find us, either Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, The Misfit Behaviorists, and we will be around the next time with the next topic. And I'm going to go, uh, pick up the garbage that's down at the curb now. See you later. 

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