Prompting….what is it?

Prompting is a way of assisting the client to accurately complete a task.  One of the best prompting hierarchy's to use with clients is most to least prompting.  You want to use the most effective prompt for the learner to complete the task and prevent any errors from developing within the response chain.  As the client is learning the responses, you will fade your prompts until your client can complete the response independently. Most to least prompting hierarchy may look like the following: Full physical prompting, partial physical prompting, gestural prompt, independent.  This depends on the skill that the client is learning.

There are many different prompts that are utilized depending upon the learner.  

A few common types of prompt levels are:

Full physical prompts: this is when the instructor fully prompts the complete action for the client

Partial physical prompt: this is when the instructor only needs to prompt part of the action for the client

Gestural prompts: this is when the instructor can gesture or point towards what the client needs to do

Model prompts: this is when the instructor demonstrates the skill/action for the client

Full verbal prompts: this is when the instructor states the full word/sentence that the client needs to emit or gives an instruction

Partial verbal prompts: this is when the instructor is able to fade to part of the word that the client needs to emit (e.g. "Ch" instead of "Chips")