Prompting and Fading is Not Teaching

Prompting and fading procedures in textbooks, journal articles, and many trainings sound very neat and organized. They’re super simple, parent friendly, and the skill is mastered in no time. You might vocally prompt a child in what to say in a social situation; physically prompt a child how to dress; and model how to play with toys. Then, you systematically fade the prompts, and wow—the child has a new skill!

There is a lot of research supporting the use of prompting and fading procedures—studies show they are extremely likely to be effective. But in practice, often things don’t go nearly as smoothly as described in the research literature. I’ve seen children who, despite thousands of trials, are not acquiring skills. And we’ve all seen the child who becomes “prompt dependent” and doesn’t respond without a prompt.

If the research is so strong, why do these procedures go wrong in practice so often? There are a lot of possible answers:

There are so many different ways to prompt and fade. We simply used the wrong procedure for the situation.
The child didn’t have the relevant prerequisite skills to be successful with this skill.
Certain types of prompts are inherently more difficult to fade.

Sure, all these are possible—sometimes. But I don’t think they are the most common reason that attempts to prompt and fade fail. I think the problem is that often, when we train people to do prompting and fading, we sometimes give the misleading impression that the prompting and fading is teaching. That’s easy to do since that is what people see when they watch videos and demonstrations of prompting and fading.

The question to ask is why are we use prompting and fading procedures in the first place? The answer—we prompt and fade only so that we have the opportunity to reinforce at just the right moment. Prompting and fading procedures don’t usually work in isolation. They work by giving the BCBA, RBT, parent, teacher, or paraprofessional the opportunity to give feedback through reinforcement. Then, we slowly require more and more from the student over time. Prompting and fading doesn’t work without the feedback. If there is no feedback, or if feedback is given at the wrong time, learning is unlikely.

I’ve made this mistake so often that about ten years ago, I started to work hard to make this explicit in my trainings. I’ve experimented with quite a few ways to make this point, and it has been getting better and better ratings over the years. Of course, it is still on a Poogi. It isn’t easy to train people this way, but it’s worth it. Once people understand this point, they will dramatically improve their teaching.

Behavior analytic services should only be delivered in the context of a professional relationship. Nothing written in this blog should be considered advice for any specific individual. The purpose of the blog is to share my experience, not to provide treatment. Please get advice from a professional before making changes to behavior analytic services being delivered. Nothing in this blog including comments or correspondence should be considered an agreement for Dr. Barry D. Morgenstern to provide services or establish a professional relationship outside of a formal agreement to do so. I attempt to write this blog in “plain English” and avoid technical jargon whenever possible. But all statements are meant to be consistent with behavior analytic literature, practice, and the professional code of ethics. If, for whatever reason, you think I’ve failed in the endeavor, let me know and I’ll consider your comments and make revisions, if appropriate. Feedback is always appreciated as I’m always trying to POOGI.