to cue: “You may line up for recess now, Carl. Whenever you see all theoge kids line up, you can too.” With repeated prompting and practice, Car} begin to link his action to the environmental cue and, in doing so, lessen dependence on the teacher. It’s important for teachers to keep in ming a verbal prompt, such as the one used above, is actually a two-step p being asked of the child: to line up and learn the social skill of cueing offs environment. For some children, especially those with more impaired soci thinking skills, this will be difficult. In that case, use a nonverbal Prompt, first, such as a physical or positional prompt, until the child achieves success then add in the verbal element to foster his cueing skills. Effective prompting All prompts are not created equal, and the dynamics of prompting are as ever changing as the learning process itself. Follow these guidelines when using prompting as a teaching tool: 1. In every situation, choose the modality to which your child or studentis most likely to respond, knowing this may change from situation to situ. tion and day to day. For instance, in times of stress, you may need to substitute a verbal prompt with a physical prompt because his languag processing capabilities are being strained. Combining modalities can bk effective (e.g., touching his shoulder and saying his name at the same time). 2. Beware both under-prompting and over-prompting. Observe closely s0 you will be able to determine just how much help your student needs. Too little prompting and your student will not have adequate inform: tion (or motivation) needed to complete tasks successfully. Too muchprompting and the child may become prompt dependent. This will impede him in learning to do tasks independently. 3, The goal is independence, so as your student's ability grows, you can phase out prompting. Begin fading this type of support by moving farther away from the student when you give the prompt. Then gradually replace physical and visual prompts with verbal prompts, working your way down For the child who UICK to one-word prompts, then indirect verbal prompts. is prone to drifting Eventually, the student will be able to execute the skills off-task, place a without prompting. photograph of him working on-task on his desk asa silent Types of prompting reminder. This can also © Gestural: Nodding or shaking head, fingers to lips, help him keep his pointing, thumbs-up, other sign language or body desk or locker language (think baseball signals). organized. Post a ¢ Indirect physical: Modeling the target behavior (zip- ae ae ping coat, putting napkin in lap, walking/not running, ithits cyclone stage. using tissue not sleeve). © Direct physical: Body contact that either guides the behavior (turning his shoulder to face front, your hand over his hand while tracing, moving the child in front of a peer), or cues the behavior (touching shoulder or elbow). © Visual: Cue cards, sequence cards, photographs, devices such as timers, hourglass, calendar, day planner. © Direct verbal: “Line up for recess, Katie.” Over time, the prompt can fade to “Recess line!” to just “Recess!” and finally, fade completely as Katie learns the routine and learns to cue off peers. © Indirect verbal: Because children with autism tend to be concrete thinkers with at least some impairment to inferential ability, indirect verbal prompt- ing is effective once a child knows a skill and needs only a gentle reminder or hint, such as “What comes next?” or “And the third step is ... ” Indi- rect prompts help a child learn to cue off the environment. [