2. Prompts
Prompts are provided to increase the
likelihood that a student will provide
a desired response
• Instructor-Behavior Prompts
• Environment Prompts
• Stimulus Prompts
7. Fading
– Gradual change over successive trials of
a stimulus that controls a response so
that the response eventually occurs to a
partially changed or completely new
stimulus
– Process of slowly removing prompts
after behavior is established
10. Example of Prompting and Fading
• Visual Prompt
– https://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=IwaqAkwbd_w
11. Can you think of any real life
examples when prompts were
provided then faded?
• Riding a Bike
– Training wheels Holding the
seat and running with the
individual holding the seat at
the beginning not holding the
seat
12. Errorless Learning
maximal support initially to ensure
success
systematic and
gradual decrease
of prompts
Establish stimulus
Discrimination so
that no errors occur
13. Errorless Transfer of Stimulus
Control
• Useful in situation in which a stimulus
exerts strong control of a response to be
taught to occur to some other stimulus
• Advantages over trial and error
procedures:
1. Errors consume time
2. If error occurs, it tends to occur many times,
even though it is being extinguished
3. Nonreinforcement of errors (extinguishing
of errors) produces emotional side effects
14. Dimensions of Stimuli for
Fading
What do we mean when we say
Dimensions of a stimuli?
15. Dimensions of Stimuli for
Fading
• Fading occurs along dimensions of
stimuli
• Dimension – any characteristic that can
be measured on some continuum
• Fading can occur across specific
stimulus dimensions and across changes
in general situation or setting
– Ex: physical structure of room; loudness;
number of other people present; physical to
gestural
16. Factors Influencing the
Effectiveness of Fading
1. Choosing the final desired
stimulus (FDS)
– Stimulus we want to evoke or
produce the behavior at the end of
the fading procedure
– Important to select FDS in whose
presence responding will be
maintained in natural environment
17. Factors Influencing the
Effectiveness of Fading
2. Choosing the starting stimulus –
prompt
– Stimulus that reliably evokes the
desired behavior
– Teacher behavior as prompts
– Environmental alterations as prompts
– Extra-stimulus vs within-stimulus
prompts
18. Factors Influencing the
Effectiveness of Fading
3. Choosing the fading steps
– Should be chosen carefully
– Need to monitor performance to
determine the speed of fading
– If student begins making errors,
prompts may have been faded too
quickly or with too few steps
•May need to backtrack
19. Guidelines for Effective
Application of Fading
1. Choose final desired stimulus
2. Set an appropriate reinforcer
3. Choose the starting stimulus and
fading steps
4. Put plan into effect
20. Please email me if you have any questions
Reminder: You still have Quiz on Chapters 8
and 9 on Thursday the 19th (this will be
proctored in class)
See you all next week!
