One of the goals of applied behavior analysis (ABA) is to help people learn the skills they need to be successful in their daily activities. Said another way, teaching a person what to do (i.e., target behavior) in a situation (i.e., cue) to get a preferred outcome (i.e., reinforcer).
Learning often occurs through rules and/or direct experience. An example of a rule is a parent telling a child, “When your toy is on a shelf that you cannot reach, ask me for help, and I will get it down for you.” The statement identified the cue (i.e., when a toy is out of reach), target behavior (i.e., asking for help), and the reinforcer (i.e., being given the toy).
Although rules may be effective for some learners, they may not be the most effective way to learn for all people or for all skills. An alternative method for teaching new skills is direct experience, where a person uses the target behavior when the cue is present, and a preferred outcome occurs. For example, when a child’s toy car is on top of a bookcase (i.e., cue) and he asks for help (i.e., target behavior), a caregiver retrieves the item and hands it to him (i.e., reinforcer).
To maximize learning through direct experience, the cue, target behavior, and reinforcer need to occur in a specific sequence. The first part of the sequence requires the target behavior to occur when the cue is present (e.g., a toy being out of reach). To increase the likelihood of the target behavior occurring when the cue is present, ABA therapists, teachers, and caregivers use prompting.
Prompts fall into one of two categories: response prompts or stimulus prompts. This post will discuss response prompts, and stimulus prompts will be reviewed in a future Talk the Talk post.