Your Therapy Source Magazine for Pediatric Therapists January 2016 | Page 7

Types of Prompts (Continued)
3. Delay prompting by increasing the amount of time before you offer the assistance. For
example, when providing a verbal prompt wait 3 seconds before providing the manual prompt.
When the child is ready try to fade the prompt, by providing the verbal prompt, now wait 5
seconds and if the child does not complete the request provide the manual prompt.
4. Grade the guidance you are providing for manual prompts. The instructor can gradually
change the intensity or location of the manual prompt. For example, if you need to provide
hand over hand manual guidance, slowly grade the guidance to just the wrist, then elbow,
then shoulder, then standing behind and finally moving away entirely.
5. Gradually fade the properties or characteristics of the materials used to elicit the skill. For
example, if you want the child to point to a specific object perhaps you make that object stand
out more during early trials (ie “Point to the red circle” and the red circle is bright red versus
the other choice which may be dull green circle). Then as the the child responds correctly
decrease the difference between to the two choic \ˈ\