Prompt

A prompt is added help

The natural cue is the event that should guide the response in everyday life. A prompt is an extra feature added for teaching. If a person opens a transit app when the bus arrives, the arrival may be the natural cue. A teacher pointing to the app is a gestural prompt.

Separating the cue from the prompt makes fading possible. It also prevents a team from calling a response independent while added help remains present.

Response and stimulus prompts differ

Response prompts act on the learner's response. They include modeling, gesture, verbal assistance, and physical guidance. Stimulus prompts change a feature of the materials or cue, such as size, color, position, contrast, or an added visual marker.

The categories can overlap in practice. Record what the teacher actually did, when it occurred, and how much help it provided. A vague label such as “minimal prompting” is difficult to reproduce or review.

Choose help from the learner and task

Prompt selection should consider current skills, communication, sensory and motor access, health, error history, task risk, past response to prompts, and the person's preference. A verbal prompt may overload one learner. A visual cue may be inaccessible to another.

The ABAI basic-principles page and BACB Test Content Outline cover prompts, stimulus control, fading, and skill acquisition as educational or examination content. They do not prescribe a hierarchy for an individual.

Timing changes the teaching arrangement

A prompt can occur immediately, after a planned delay, or after an incorrect or absent response. The chosen timing affects error opportunities, independence, and what the learner experiences. Define the wait interval and response window.

Teachers also need an error response and a stop rule. Rapidly repeating the same prompt can become confusing. When performance changes, review the cue, prompt, pace, reinforcement, health, and setting.

Write a prompt record others can reproduce

For each target, record the natural cue, exact prompt, delivery timing, wait interval, response window, eligible opportunity, and ordinary supports. Describe a correct independent response, each prompted category, an error, no response, withdrawal, and an invalid opportunity. Add the fading and escalation rules.

Use short examples during staff or caregiver training. One person delivers the cue and prompt while another scores the trial from the written definition. Compare results and discuss disagreements. Repeat with the prompt delivered too early, too late, or at the wrong level. This calibration makes treatment more consistent and keeps partner errors visible. Store the active version with the data so later review can distinguish a learner change from a changed prompting method.

Physical guidance requires extra safeguards

Physical prompting involves contact and creates specific consent, assent, competence, health, trauma, dignity, and safety concerns. Explain the contact in advance and provide an accessible way to decline or stop. Stillness and compliance do not establish assent.

Use a less intrusive effective prompt when available. Stop on withdrawal or distress unless an immediate safety or legal duty governs. A teaching plan never authorizes restraint or medically unsafe positioning.

Fading belongs in the initial plan

A prompt should have a path toward the natural cue or ordinary support. Fading may change prompt intensity, timing, position, size, wording, or frequency. The plan should name the performance rule for each change and what happens if independence drops.

Prompt dependence can appear when a person waits for added help despite knowing the response. Useful AAC, mobility, visual, sensory, or safety supports may remain. The goal is functional performance rather than removal of every support.

A fictional snack example

Safiya chooses a goal of opening a preferred snack container. Across ten eligible opportunities, she opens it before added help in 4 of 10, after a visual position cue in 3 of 10, after a modeled twist in 2 of 10, and pauses once. The categories total ten.

The pause is honored and recorded as withdrawal. Prompted success and independent success remain separate. These observations do not show that prompting caused a change.

Measure access and experience

Record eligible opportunities, natural cue, prompt type and level, timing, independent and prompted responses, errors, latency, withdrawal, generalization, maintenance, and the person's experience. Report partner fidelity separately from learner performance.

ASHA's AAC guidance says AAC users should always have their tools or devices. The current BACB Ethics Code addresses client involvement, understandable communication, consent and assent when applicable, assessment, risk, and evaluation for covered professionals.