Errorless teaching prompt dependence may be present when the learner waits for an added prompt despite a usable natural cue, or when prompted accuracy stays high while independent probes remain low. The team should inspect prompt timing, salience, consistency, response effort, reinforcement, natural-cue clarity, and fading history. Pause automatic progression, preserve communication, and redesign the procedure from current data and client experience.
Recognize errorless teaching prompt dependence
Look for longer waiting as the prompt person approaches, performance only with one staff member, scanning for a cue that should be gone, or declining independent probes. Confirm that the natural cue is visible and meaningful. A person may reasonably wait when staff have taught that responding early risks correction.
Repair the controlling relation
Options include time delay, stimulus fading, changing prompt salience, reinforcing independent responses differently, teaching staff to wait, simplifying the task, or selecting another strategy. Change one interpretable feature when practical and set a rollback rule. Avoid blaming the learner for a prompt history the team arranged.
Use research for questions
The prompting decision tool reviews strategy selection and prompt-fading considerations. The Leaf trial found different response patterns across two teaching procedures. The BACB outline includes stimulus-control transfer and evaluation. These sources cannot diagnose dependence from one session.
Protect access and assent
The Ethics Code addresses client involvement, assent when applicable, risk, and data-based review. The ASHA guidance supports continual AAC access. Keep help and wait messages available while the plan changes.
A practical example
Rosa selects the correct menu item only after a technician points, despite ten sessions of high prompted accuracy. Independent probes are 2 of 8. The team delays the gesture, improves the natural label contrast, and starts a new version rather than marking the goal mastered.
Questions families can use
Is the natural cue clear? Does the learner wait for a person or prompt? What do independent probes show? Are staff timing prompts consistently? Which fading repair and rollback rule apply?
Sources
- Association for Behavior Analysis International, Basic Principles in Behavior Analysis
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, BCBA Test Content Outline, 6th edition
- Leaf and colleagues, Comparing Error Correction to Errorless Learning: A Randomized Clinical Trial
- A Decision-Making Tool for Evaluating and Selecting Prompting Strategies
- Behavior Analyst Certification Board, Ethics Code for Behavior Analysts
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, Augmentative and Alternative Communication
Finni resources
