Prompts tips and tricks by Anuradha Srivastava
Is a most common teaching technique in our field. If we go by its literal meaning it means immediate. we call it so because it relates to the timing. For us it is the help or assistance given to the child while teaching..For instance we take a skill of teaching child word “sit”. Main instructor will give Sd of Sit and assistant will either give physical help to the child and make the child to sit or help him through gesture or asking him in different tone to sit or model the sitting behavior or can use all( physical, verbal, gesture, Model)And all this help will follow immediately after the instructor’s instruction.
Generally in our case instruction and assistance is given by the same person most of the time by us, Moms. So the problem arises that child learns a particular skills with his Mom but unable to do it with other’s.
This issue comes because child not only takes the prompts given by her mom but also seek some hidden assistance.(help or gestures that give clues to the child)
I will take my personal experience to explain.
While I was teaching typing to my son i realised that he is doing it nicely when Iam sitting near to him and making mistakes when I am away. I rolled back the task and start again with 2 to 3 letters giving in chits with one letter say Y on it and asking other to give instruction my husband or his school teacher and we shared that particular alphabet and gradually it improved.
So here my point is , targeted skills are established only when child is able to do it without any help. And is generalized . That means able to do in all situations.
So with prompting we have to focus on shaping chaining and fading of prompts. And Generalising the learned skill.
Author Anuradha Srivastava
Anuradha Srivastava is a mother of a Fifteen years old on Autism spectrum. She currently runs an assisted living establishment in Noida “Nirantar Prayas“.
Creative representation for this blog is beautifully done by supertalented CreativeSaathi associate Morpheus Nag
