Prompting Hierarchy

The prompting hierarchy is a systematic and standardized approach that organizes prompting strategies from “least intrusive” to “most intrusive.” It is an essential component of effective skill acquisition training in that its proper utilization establishes the balance between client needs and independence. As client skills increase, the intrusiveness of the prompts should decrease, leading to higher levels of skill mastery and independence. 

At the top of the hierarchy, the most intrusive prompt is called a “full physical prompt” or “hand-over-hand” prompting. This occurs when the learner requires full support to complete the given task. For example, when teaching a child to write their name, they may first require “hand-over-hand” assistance to grip the pencil correctly, apply the correct pressure to the page, and to make the movements necessary to form letters. As we move down the hierarchy (from most intrusive to least intrusive), next comes partial physical prompting, then model prompts, followed by verbal prompts, gestural prompts, visual prompts, and then finally independence. 

A partial physical prompt would be making small adjustments as the child writes their name to ensure they are starting in the correct place or correcting some other error. Modeling in this instance could be writing the child’s name for them so they have something to base their writing off of. Additionally, providing tracing lines may also be viewed as a model prompt. Verbal prompting could be saying something like “OK, you wrote the N, let’s see what comes next…” A gestural prompt may be waiting until the child seems stuck and then making a gesture of writing with a pencil while pointing to the paper to remind them to stay on task. And finally a visual prompt in this scenario may be showing the learner a visual representation of someone writing their name in order to remind them to stay on task. 

In this scenario, the assistance “faded” from the child needing full assistance to physically write their name to them just needing some reminders to keep working and to stay on task. It is essential when working with children that we remind ourselves to prompt fade whenever possible. Educators, caregivers, and therapists alike can tend to want to “help” in a way that results in learners becoming “stuck” at a certain level of the prompting hierarchy. It is important for everyone teaching skills to clients that they stay aware of their tendencies to “over-prompt” while setting intentions to help fade their prompting, when appropriate, in order to help the learner gain mastery and independence. 

References:

Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2019). Applied Behavior Analysis (3rd Edition). Hoboken, NJ: Pearson Education.

Nicholas Lea, Behavior Specialist, Miren Behavior