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Prompting

Prompting

Mark Fioramonti

Franciscan University of Steubenville

EDU 348
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Introduction

Education is a field unlike any other field of work. Teachers have the opportunity to impact

students’ lives not only academically but also emotionally and socially. This can be done by

simply building relationships with these students. A clear connection can be made between

teachers positive relationships with students and the students’ academic success. This can be

done with all students through positivity and encouragement (Armstrong, Haskett, & Hawkins,

2017). Education is a field, as headmaster Brad Rogers of the Gow School in Buffalo said,

“That is amazing, incredible, and very rewarding but it is tough.” (Rogers, 2018). Education

pushes teachers as well as students to be their best but tests them both intellectually and

emotionally. In one study, 30% of teachers leave the field of education after three years of

teaching (Worthy, J. 2016). Teachers cannot take entering into the field of education

lightly. That being said teachers have to prepare so that they can face these difficulties head on

and embrace the amazing aspects that are attached to teaching. The path of education is one that

involves a lot of hard work, persistence, preparation, and continually trying to improve and get

better. Students will come and go, teachers must constantly be able to adapt to each and every

student in the classroom. Some of the most unique and talented students in the classroom may

also be the students who are the most difficult to teach. They may be the students with

behavioral issues, learning disabilities, autism, or other issues that teachers have to be

knowledgeable about so they can work to create a learning experience in which those students

learn best. In 2011, it was found that out of the nearly 50 million students in public school, 6.4

million of these students received special education (Markey & Miller, 2015). These students

are not unteachable, but they are students who have a lot to give in the classroom and often

desire very much to learn. Out of all the students in, educators need to ensure that they meet the
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essential needs of these students. Great teachers and the most effective strategies should be

employed for students with disabilities. These students not only can greatly benefit from this but

their inclusion into the general education classrooms and into the world can change their lives for

the good (Dogan & Bengisoy, 2017). Many students can benefit from different types of

intervention, evidence-based strategies, and techniques. One of these strategies that can be

implemented by educators to aid these students is prompting. Sometimes, understanding what

exactly teachers want or how the teacher wants something to be done can be very difficult for

students. Students often have that feeling of helplessness because they do not know the teachers

expectations. Modeling cues, and prompts are ways in which educators can help produce a

learning environment that is not only positive but one in which expectations are clear (Pedota,

2015). Educators use prompts all the time to encourage students of all levels to complete a

specific task or behavior. Prompting can be used as a means for educators to help students

acquire a specific skill or model a specific behavior (Meadan, Ostrosky, Santos & Snodgrass,

2013). This paper will discuss what prompting is as well as display examples of prompting and

different types of prompting. The research conducted in this paper is created for the purpose of a

better understanding of what prompts are, how they can be implemented, and a hopeful further

use of prompts.

Definition of Practice (Prompting):

Prompting can be simply defined in the dictionary as “to move or induce to

action” (Dictionary, 2016). This is a very basic and minimal definition of what prompting is but

it also displays the focal aspect of what prompts are. Prompts are ways in which something can

be urged or instigated into doing something. In education, this pertains to the teacher-student

interaction in which a teacher prompts a student to do something. Prompting is a way to enrich

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instruction which involves guiding students through the learning process so as to be able to

appropriately respond in an academic or behavior way. (Endres, Carpenter, Martin, & Renkl,

2017; Cengher, Budd, Farrell, & Fienup, 2018; Lehmann, & Ifenthaler, 2012). Prompting has

two specific functions: 1. While acquiring a new skill or learning a new behavior, limiting the

amount of mistakes 2. Limit the amount of time it takes to understand and be able to accomplish

a new behavior or skill independently (Prompting, 2018; Meadan, Ostrosky, Santos &

Snodgrass, 2013). Prompts are seen as universally helpful and beneficial to educators in

producing productive learning in their classroom. (Lehmann, & Ifenthaler, 2012; Petko, D.,

Egger, N. & Graber, M. 2014). Prompts are ways in which teachers can increase the student’s

opportunity to respond to something appropriately and accurately (Meadan, Ostrosky, Santos &

Snodgrass, 2013). A great example of a type of prompt is a verbal prompt. A verbal prompt is

the most widely applied prompt and is very simply prompting with the use of spoken words (Van

Kleef, Van Den Broek, & Van Trijp, 2015) A verbal prompt is the most widely applied prompt

and is very simply prompting with the use of spoken words (Van Kleef, Van Den Broek, & Van

Trijp, 2015). Two types of verbal prompts can be defined. Indirect verbal prompts are prompts

in which a teacher gives a very minimal verbal prompt to students. In a direct verbal prompts,

the teacher explains to the student exactly what they need to do. An example of this is if a

teacher were to ask a student who is stuck subtracting 3 - 2 “If you have three cookies and two

are taken away how many do you have?” Verbal prompts can be effective but they are generally

regarded as the least effective among the prompts when used with students with disabilities.

(Meadan, Ostrosky, Santos & Snodgrass, 2013; Ukle-Kurkcuoglu, B. 2015) A gesture prompt is

another commonly used type of prompt. In a gesture prompt, the teacher gestures in a way that

cues the student to respond. This can be done through a nod, hand gesture or even a gesture with
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the eyes. An example of this is if a student mispronounces a “d” for a “b” sound. The educator

might use a gestural prompt by pointing to the specific letter the student mispronounced

(Meadan, Ostrosky, Santos & Snodgrass, 2013; Cengher, Budd, Farrell, & Fienup,

2018). Lastly, an example of a visual prompt is a picture that can prompt students to do

something. Visual prompts can be anything from a poster, to a picture, or even a specific object

that helps prompt the student to do something. An example of this is if a teacher wants students

to wash their hands after using the bathroom, the teacher would put a picture of a student

washing their hands above the sink to remind the student to wash their hands (Meadan, Ostrosky,

Santos & Snodgrass, 2013; Sussman, & Gifford, 2012). Non-examples of prompts can include

not prompting students whatsoever and letting them complete a task or engage in a behavior that

is not pushed a specific direction. Another non-example of prompting is vague prompting.

Vague prompting can include questions that follow a reading or instruction such as “Is everyone

with me?” or “Is anyone confused?” These types of questions are not only not helpful to

students but can be very confusing and often met with silence. They are often used to move on

in the lesson; hoping the students understand everything. Instead, teachers need to be much

more specific and prompt student’s questions with particular aspects that the teacher thinks they

are confused by (Watkins, 2018). An important aspect of prompts is that they must be

faded. Fading is when an educator takes a specific prompt that has been used and gradually

removes it until the students can complete a task or perform a behavior on their own. An

example of this is if a student were learning how to add and, at first, the answer is to the addition

problem is completely shown but gradually the answer is covered up as the student gains more

confidence. This is extremely helpful in having students build up confidence in their own

abilities and eventually work independently, especially if they are used to extra help. Fading does
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not only have to be limited to math but can be also used in subjects such as science, history, or

English. (Rouse, Alber-Morgan, Cullen, & Sawyer, 2014). There are three general steps that one

can use when applying any type of prompt: 1. Select a prompt that connects to a desired result 2.

Once the student shows signs of independency, provide encouragement and feedback 3. Fade the

prompt so that a prompt is not needed at all so that the student can work independently

(Prompting, 2018).

Point #1:

Video prompting is a commonly used practice in the field of education. Video prompting

involves showing a student or a group of students a brief video which demonstrates the first step

out of a list of steps to complete, giving the students the opportunity to complete the remaining

tasks or steps on their own. This form of prompting is very similar to video modeling in which

the entire task is displayed through a video. The differences is that modeling shows students

completely how to complete a task but video prompting only gives students the initial step in a

set of tasks or steps (Using Video Prompting With Different Fading Procedures to Teach Daily

Living Skills: A Preliminary Examination). Recently, an increase in video prompting has been

seen in teaching students with disabilities new skills or unfamiliar behaviors. Video prompting

has been found to be more effective for these students as they do not have to sit through an entire

video in which they often lose focus. Prompting allows for a much more brief, systematic, and

broken down approach to acquiring a new skill or behavior. (Wu, Cannella-Malone, Wheaton,

& Tullis, 2016). Students with developmental disabilities often need this as they struggle staying

focused and being attentive Lin, Chiang, Shih, & Li, 2017). It was found that the use of video

prompting improves the multiple skills or tasks students with learning disabilities performed

(Wu, Cannella-Malone, Wheaton, & Tullis, 2016). These tasks can include things such as
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brushing teeth, making a bed, doing the dishes, or microwaving something. These occupational

skills are very critical for people with developmental disabilities because this allows them to

become more fully apart of society (Banda, Dogoe, & Matuszny, 2011). The use of video

prompting was used in research to see if participants with disabilities could learn and master the

skill of microwaving popcorn. These video prompts were gradually faded and eventually, after

three months, this skill was mastered by participants. Another example of successful video

prompting is when participants with developmental disabilities were taught to wash their

hands. Prompting videos of how to wash hands were shown and then faded until they became

proficient in the skill. Grouping or “chunking” video prompts helped condense the steps so that

the participants could focus longer. Brady did a study in 2010 in which participants with

developmental disabilities were taught daily living skills. At first they were shown video

prompts and then just visual prompts of what to do. This fading and video prompting technique

was proven to be successful and effective in acquiring the life skills (Wu, Cannella-Malone,

Wheaton, & Tullis, 2016). Even the first ever study on video prompting showed its

effectiveness and success. In 1994, Paulo R. Alcantara used video prompting along with least-

to-most prompting to instruct three students with autism how to get goods from a store. This

particular study showed these three student how to grocery shop using a 32 step video prompt.

Once they had seen the video, they were taken into a grocery shop to see how well the prompts

had worked. The three students struggled with this many steps but a least-to-most prompt was

then incorporated into the video prompt. In the end, with the addition of the least-to-most

prompt, the students improved and were able to complete many more steps and gain mastery in

grocery shopping (Markey & Miller 2015). These four specific studies display the effectiveness

that video-prompting can have in students with disabilities as well as the importance of fading
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prompts. As a whole, video prompting is very beneficial for students with developmental

disabilities in not only acquiring a specific skill but maintaining and mastering that skill. The

ability to perform some of these skills and tasks allow for these students to better participate in

daily tasks and gain more independence and confidence.

Point #2

A second type of prompt that can be used to aid students with disabilities is least-to-most

prompts. This is especially useful for students with autism, developmental disabilities, or mental

disabilities (Eren, Deniz, & Duzkantar, 2013). Least-to-most prompts are a type of prompting

that, in a way scaffolds student learning, like video prompting and is used to help students with

developmental disabilities complete skills. In this approach, initially no prompt is given at all. If

the student cannot complete the task or does it wrong, a prompt that offers little support is given

to help the student. Gradually, if this pattern continues, where the student gets something wrong

or cannot complete a task, further prompts are given that offer more support or cues on the

correct way to do it until the skill is mastered or acquired (Eren, Deniz, & Duzkantar, 2013; Inge,

2012).

These prompts are given in a hierarchical order in which correct responses are met with

reinforcement while incorrect responses are met with the next level of prompting. Multiple

studies have been conducted that display the success of least-to-most prompting in students of

varying ages and disabilities. Barton and Wolery found that least-to-most prompting was very

effective in teaching students with developmental disabilities play skills because it encourages

independent play as well as motivated to learn new play activities (Ukle-Kurkcuoglu,

2015). Least-to-most prompting is very effective and useful for not only obtaining a skill but
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also for establishing independence because it allows the student to work so that they can

complete the task by themselves but if it gets frustrating a prompt is then provided so that they

can more easily master or the task. Natalie T. Murzynski and Jason C. Bourret conducted a

study on daily life skills obtained by two boys with autism using both video prompting and least-

to-most prompting. This combination method was found to be more effective than methods in

which the two prompts were used separately (Markey, & Miller, 2015). Aykut and Varol

conducted a study in which they taught mentally disabled students how to wear stretch pants

with the help of least-to-most prompting. Between 80 - 100% of participants completed these

skills. (Iscan, Nurcin, & Fazlioglu, 2016). Lastly, a study, which involved researchers in Turkey

and the U.S., was conducted to see the effects of least-to-most prompting with children with

autism basic tennis skills. Children in the study all ranged from ages 7 to 9. Students with

autism were asked to dribble the ball, at first, without any prompt and gradually if they could not

complete the skill or did not try they would be given verbal, gestural, or visual prompts. These

increased in intensity if the student kept failing at completing the task. With the help of the

least-to-most prompts, the students were able to successfully master the skill (Yanardağ, Birkan,

Yılmaz, Konukman, Ağbuğa, & Lieberman, 2011). Least-to-most prompting can be crucial in

providing students with developmental disabilities the opportunity to become independent and

learn a skill on their own while also monitoring them so that the learned behavior does not

become agitating.

Implications of practice:

Throughout this entire research, three specific aspects of prompting stood out that

seemed to be essential components of prompting. Across a majority of the studies reviewed,

many researchers used prompting with individuals with disabilities to teach life skills as well as
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simple tasks. Students with any type of physically or mentally restraining disability have, often,

a very difficult time completing tasks such as brushing teeth, getting dressed, or preparing food

for themselves. Without help from others, sometimes these tasks can be impossible. It is critical

for these students to be able to complete these skills on their own or at least with minimal help

from others especially as they grow older and into adult life. Daily life skills and tasks are often

skills that are not learned independently especially for those who may have a more severe

handicap (Chiang, Ni, & Lee, 2017). Mastering these everyday skills is beneficial for students

with disabilities because they not only have to do them every day, but, independence in

completing these skills can bolster their confidence as well as acceptance by others. That

acceptance can help these students socially and emotionally. Their attitude shifts to one that is

much more positive and they do not feel restrained by their disability if these daily activities can

be completed. They feel a sense of empowerment (Iscan, Nurcin, & Fazlioglu, 2016). Educators

must be aware of the importance of these simple tasks. Instead of just jumping in and

completing a task for them so as to get something done quickly, teachers need to realize that the

independence in these tasks are very important. Prompting these students with the help of visual,

verbal, or gestural prompts can foster this independence. Prompting daily activities can model a

portion of the activity so that assistance is not needed at all.

Another aspect of prompting that was predominately seen throughout research was the

importance of fading. Fading allows for the educator to diminish the prompts, less and less so

that a prompt is eventually not needed whatsoever. As stated before, it helps support the student

initially. This is often the case that these students require some sort of assistance if not a

significant amount of help. The goal of this fading prompt is to allow these students to gain

mastery in the skill or task. This strongly encourages the mastery if skills as well as
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independence. When using prompts which involve a lot of assistance, students can become upset

or frustrated because they might resent the involvement especially when a skill is close to or

completely mastered. Fading prompts can be very beneficial for both teachers and students.

Being able to fade prompts effectively encourages students to work to master a skill and can

improve their independence and less self-reliance on others (prompting, 2018; Meadan,

Ostrosky, Santos & Snodgrass, 2013).

Lastly, there were two types of prompts that can both be extremely effective when

instructing students with disabilities. These prompts are video prompts and least-to-most

prompts. Video prompts must be used and least-to-most prompts must be included within video

prompts for the most beneficial use. This might involve showing a student a video prompt with

minimal direction so that the student can complete a task and then gradually adding prompts as

the student incorrectly completes the task or does not complete it at all. Through these two

prompts, the student is able to attempt to be more independent by completing the task, with the

prompt of a video, but is also helped if the activity becomes too frustrating. Educators must be

able to recognize these frustrations and prevent them but also give students the opportunity to

overcome a task they might not understand. This combination will improve students with

disabilities self-confidence and minimize discouragement (Markey & Miller, 2015)

Future Direction of Research:

Future research within the strategy of prompting can be extensive and involve many

different types of prompting. Throughout my own research, I found very little research or

studies on different types of prompts. There was a good amount of research on very specific

types of prompts such as video prompts but when it came to general prompts little research was
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seen. What are the benefits or limits of gestural, verbal, physical, or visual prompts? How can

these prompts be used in the classroom to help student’s complete assignments or skill mastery?

These are just a couple of questions that I would love to see answered by further research. I also

found very little research in regard to prompts and general education classrooms. More

specifically, I would have liked to see how prompts can be useful to students with other, less

severe, disabilities such as ADHD or dyslexia. After reading so much about prompting, I truly

think it can be very beneficial to these types of students as well. Prompting could be used to cue

students with dyslexia to spell something again or reread something. With ADHD or any

behavior disorder, prompts could be used to encourage a desired behavior. The directions for

this type of research could be vast and extremely helpful to general education teachers who see

these students all the time in their classroom.

Conclusion

Throughout my research, prompting, of all types, has been highly regarded as successful

and beneficial to all students of all abilities and disabilities. Having an understanding of what

prompts are, how to use them, and when they should be implement can greatly aid educators in

the classroom. They are known to be extremely effective in assisting students with disabilities

complete a multitude of different tasks. Prompts not only allow for teachers to monitor progress

and prevent frustration, but also to promote the independence of students with disabilities.

Recognizing the usefulness of prompts and implementing them correctly can help educators help

their students become more successful and confident in the work they do which will allow them

to be successful inside and outside the classroom.

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