A Comparison of the Effects of Two Prompt-Fading Strategies on Skill Acquisition in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that most-to-least (MTL) and least-to-most (LTM) prompting are effective in helping children with Autism Spectrum Disorders acquire a variety of new skills. However, when directly compared to one another, the efficiency and efficacy of the prompting procedures have been variable. The inconsistencies in the literature could be due to selecting prompt topographies that do not promote correct responding. To address this, the present study began by assessing different prompt topographies and then compared most-to-least (MTL) and least-to-most (LTM) prompt-fading with only prompt topographies that were potent enough to promote correct responding. The subsequent comparison of prompt-fading procedures revealed that MTL prompting was more effective and efficient than LTM prompting for all three participants. Further implications for practice and future research are discussed.Keywords Least-to-most . Most-to-least . Prompt . Prompting . Prompt-fading Children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) often require prompts to learn new behaviors and prompt-fading strategies to transfer stimulus control from the prompt to the naturally occurring discriminative stimuli. Two of the most commonly used prompt-fading procedures are most-to-least (MTL) and least-to-most (LTM) prompting (Libby et al., 2008). These procedures employ the same prompt topographies, including verbal, gestural, and physical prompts; however, they differ in the order in which the prompts are presented. MTL fading sequences order prompt topographies from the most intrusive (e.g., physical prompts) to the least intrusive (e.g., verbal). In LTM fading, prompt sequences are arranged in the opposite order.Both MTL and LTM prompting can effectively improve independent responding when compared to baseline levels of responding or control procedures (for a review, see Demchak 1990). A few studies have directly compared the effectiveness and efficiency of these two popular procedures (Libby et al. 2008;McConville et al. 1998;Walls 1981). In all of these studies with the exception of Libby et al. (2008), MTL and LTM procedures were similarly effective; however, efficiency outcomes were variable across participants and different measurements of efficiency.Of the aforementioned studies, Libby et al. (2008) conducted the most systematic analysis and comparison of MTL and LTM procedures. In the first experiment, a direct comparison of the procedures revealed that three of five participants met a mastery criterion with both procedures, whereas the other two participants only met a mastery criterion with the MTL procedure. Therefore, overall, the MTL procedure was more effective than the LTM procedure in this experiment. Efficiency data, on the other hand, were variable across dependent variables. The LTM procedure was more efficient for the three participants who met a criterion with this procedure when considering trials to criterion; however, the MTL procedure was more efficient for all participants when considering errors to criterion....

Assessment to identify learner‐specific prompt and prompt‐fading procedures for children with autism spectrum disorder

“…Cengher et al () replicated and extended Seaver and Bourret () by using an assessment procedure to identify the prompt type that resulted in the most efficient acquisition of responses to one‐step directions for three preschool‐age participants with ASD. Once the most efficient prompt type was identified, the experimenters compared the most‐to‐least (MTL) and least‐to‐most (LTM) prompt fading procedures.…”

“…Recently, a handful of studies have begun to examine the use of assessment procedures to identify the most efficient learner‐specific instructional procedures for individuals with ASD (e.g., Bourret, Vollmer, & Rapp, ; Carroll, Owsiany, & Cheatham, ; Cengher et al, ; Johnson, Vladescu, Kodak, & Sidener, ; McGhan & Lerman, ; Seaver & Bourret, ). Broadly speaking, the purpose of these studies is to identify learner‐specific instructional components that would lead to the most efficient learning outcomes.…”

“…These previous studies on the use of instructional assessment have primarily evaluated efficiency of instruction by comparing relative training trials to mastery (Cengher et al, ; Seaver & Bourret, ). One potential question is whether this measurement scale is the most accurate way to determine efficiency, especially if there are differences in the amount of total training time across conditions.…”

“…Although the use of assessment holds promise to identify learner‐specific instructional components for individuals with ASD, generality across tasks remains a concern. While previous studies have examined the effects of instructional assessment to identify prompt type and prompt‐fading procedures as they relate to block building (Seaver & Bourret, ) and one‐step direction following (Cengher et al, ), no studies to date have examined the usefulness of such assessment to identify prompt type and prompt‐fading procedures on acquisition of auditory–visual conditional discriminations (AVCDs) during discrete‐trial teaching for individuals with ASD.…”

An evaluation of parent preference for prompting procedures

“…Researchers have compared prompt-fading procedures to evaluate potential advantages of commonly used teaching methods (e.g., Cengher, Budd, Farrell, & Fienup, 2018;Cengher et al, 2015;Libby et al, 2008;Seaver & Bourret, 2014). For example, Libby et al (2008) compared MTL and LTM procedures for teaching children to build block structures.…”