How to use "Prompts" and "Fading" to teach Independence

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by Merely Me
Monday, January 18, 2010

Last week I wrote about the emotional aspects of letting go to allow your child to become more independent. But this week I am going to tell you how to actually do it.  Bear with me as I am going to get a little technical on you. The following information includes behavioral techniques you can use to teach your special needs child to become more independent with whatever goals you happen to be teaching.  I consider this to be a low risk way to promote independence as you give your child the supports that they need to achieve success while inching forward with slowly removing those supports when the child is ready.

The first behavioral technique I am going to talk about is using a hierarchy of prompts.   Let's say you want to teach your child to brush their teeth.  There are certain steps involved with such a task.  If you were to break it down step by step you might have a list of 5-10 small tasks.  This is called a task analysis. Here is an example of how brushing teeth can be broken down into smaller steps.

1.    Pick up toothbrush
2.    Turn on water
3.    Place toothbrush under water to wet it.
4.    Squeeze small amount of toothpaste onto brush.
5.    Brush top teeth for (set amount of time).
6.    Brush bottom teeth for (set amount of time).
7.    Rinse out mouth
8.    Rinse off toothbrush.

These steps can be as short or as elaborate as you want them to be depending upon your child's needs.  Maybe they really need to work on getting the proper amount of toothpaste onto the brush and so you might break that step down into more parts.  The key is to individualize instruction based upon your child's unique needs.

Now comes the teaching part.  For each step of your task analysis you will use a hierarchy of cues and prompts so that the child can experience success.  

The first thing you do is assess how independent your child is with the particular skill you wish to teach right off the bat.  So you go into the bathroom and give an initial cue of "It is time to brush your teeth."  And just see what they can do on their own.  This will give you a good gage of where to begin teaching.

Next for each step of the task analysis you will provide a prompt or cue as needed.  Here is a typical hierarchy of prompts:

1.    Non-specific verbal cue, "What do you do first?"
2.    Verbal cue, "Pick up the toothbrush."
3.    Verbal Gesture:  Say "Pick up the toothbrush" and point to the toothbrush.
4.    Partial Physical Prompt:  Move the child's hand towards the toothbrush.
5.    Hand over Hand:  Take the child's hand in yours and physically help them to grasp the toothbrush.

There are two ways to go about using these prompts and cues.  You can start with the least physical ones first is how I usually proceed.  Use the first cue in the hierarchy such as a non-specific verbal cue, "What do you do next?" and see what your child does.  Wait at least ten seconds before proceeding to the next cue if you child gets stuck and doesn't know what to do or if they do a step out of sequence.  Give the next cue which would be a verbal cue, "Pick up the toothbrush" and if they still don't get it then keep going through the prompts listed until they are successful with that particular step of the task.