How to work thru the prompt hierarchy so your autistic child gains more independence
The prompt hierarchy is a tool often used in special needs children to teach them how to do a task, and once the task is learned, to steer the person towards independence. This is a tool I know well, but often don’t use in all situations. Let’s be honest, it’s faster and easier for me to put my son’s socks on him, brush their teeth, and pick up their mess, rather than waiting on them to do it. The problem is that doing it for them isn’t helping my boys learn to be independent. I’m going to discuss the six prompts below and how I use them with my boys.
Prompt one is full physical. Think of this as if your autistic child is washing their hands. Full physical would be to put your hands on theirs. To move their hands to get soap and then to use your hands to rub their hands together. You are doing the work for them using their hands. Full physical prompts are the most assisted prompts and often where people start since it helps them learn how to do the task.
Prompt two is partial physical. If we look at the full physical scenario above, the partial prompt would simply be grabbing or touching their hands to signal the child to wash them. Removing the guiding hands quickly and allowing the child to finish the task on their own. Moving from a full physical prompt to a partial physical one is the first step in working thru the prompt hierarchy and should be done as soon as the child knows how to do the task.
The next prompt is modeling. The model prompt is where one person models the desired behavior, and the other person mirrors it. In the hand washing scenario, I might mime washing my hands and then my son will go and do that task for real knowing what I’m asking for and how they should do it.
Gesture prompts are next on the hierarchy. Instead of modeling to my kids to wash their hands, I’ll point to the sink instead. This signals for them to wash their hands. I tend to use my gesture prompts with the next prompt on this list.
The verbal prompt is number five. I use these often as most parents probably do. Things such as, go wash your hands, clean up your toys, put on your clothes, etc. This is the hardest one for me to stop, because it’s just part of being a parent. You tell your kids what you want done. I’m having to learn to move past this on the prompt hierarchy so my kids will become more independent and not rely on me telling them when to do what.
The final prompt I’m going to discuss is the visual prompt. Using a picture of a toilet to signal it’s time to use the potty, or a picture of a toybox to signal pick up your toys. This is typically the final step before independence. My boy’s ABA therapists use a lot of these prompts with my kids, but I don’t use nearly enough. I tend to get stuck on verbal prompts.
The prompt hierarchy is a tool used to help people move from dependence to independence. It’s things we often do naturally without realizing it, but it’s important to understand the direction we need to be going on the hierarchy. We all want our autistic kids to get more and more independent. This is one tool of many that helps them move in that direction. I hope this helps you understand a little better the prompt hierarchy and autism.