Classical conditioning technique: Behavioral Prompts, Prompting and fading

Behavioral Prompts

A behavioral prompt is defined as “an antecedent that induces a person to perform a behavior that otherwise does not occur” (Chance,1998, p. 139). Behavioral prompts are generally placed into five useable categories by behavioral scientists. These categories are verbal, gestural, physical, modeling, and environmental.

Verbal Prompts

Verbal prompts are behavioral prompts that specifically include spoken or written words, in whole or parts. When someone gives a prompt for someone else to complete a sentence, or fills in a blank on a form, a verbal prompt has occurred. Other examples of verbal prompts include using verbal cues to cause non-verbal behavior, such as a physical activity or technique of some sort. For example, the question “can I have a kiss?” is a verbal prompt for affectionate behavior if the receiver of the prompt does in fact give the prompter a kiss. There are countless other examples, but the essential factor is that the prompter elicits or evokes behavior from the prompted with written or spoken words or parts of words. The nature of the response and whether or not it is verbal is unimportant for determining if it is a verbal prompt.

Gestural Prompts

Gestural prompts are behavioral prompts that are brought on by facial expression or body posture, more commonly referred to as body language. The following is an example of use of a gestural prompt in my own life. I was once at a social gathering where a lot of hugs were being given by people I didn’t know to people I did. As a result I threw my hands out to the side in chagrin. However because of this gesture, one of the ladies who I was not acquainted with took that as a prompt indicating that I wanted a hug. She asked me if that’s what I was indicating. Needless to say, my putting my arms to the side ultimately resulted in my receiving a hug from someone whose name I can’t remember and will never see again. Such is the power of gestural prompts.

Physical Prompts

A physical prompt is guiding someone’s body to perform an action by using yours to move their body to approximate the correct motions. Go to any martial arts or sports class often enough and you stand a high probability of seeing this happen between experienced practitioners showing others the general motions of how to swing a baseball bat or golf club or even a bamboo sword.

Modeling Prompts

A modeling prompt is showing a selected behavior to the recipient by performing it, (or a close copy of it) in a manner that they can directly observe. For example during a martial arts practice session I could model to a newer student the manner in which a sword is swung or how a ceremonial bow is performed. In the same practice session I may view my instructor modeling certain moves or techniques.

Environmental Prompts

Some researchers do not recognize environmental prompts as a main category of behavior. When used as an analysis tool they are best described as a physical environmental change that favors one kind of behavior and reinforces it over another. An example of an environmental prompt could be an doormat with a shoe rack next to it. Depending on our cultural and conditioning history, either can make a fairly obvious prompt to wipe off one’s shoes and take them off before entering certain buildings. For persons not conditioned to respond to that prompt, verbal prompts or others are often necessary to teach that behavior.

Fading

Fading is defined as gradually reducing the strength of a prompt (Chance p. 144). In this process of fading a person is weaned off of the need for a behavioral prompt and then continue to perform the prompted behavior. For example a person unaccustomed to taking their shoes off at your front door might need a number of verbal prompts the first several times entering your house to take them off. However in time as they gain a consistent prompt verbally to remove their shoes, it would be possible to eventually provide smaller or fewer levels of verbal prompting until they begin to perform the desired shoe removal behavior at your front door on their own.

Prompting and Fading a desired behavior

To instill a new behavior in a person, prompting and fading, can lead to the development of a desired behavior prompted only by its natural prompts rather than by the added prompts given to condition the behavior. While the exact procedure for this process is done rather intuitively by parents and teachers the world over, explaining the details of it is useful for applications with persons with disabilities mental or otherwise. This is because while most adults and normal children respond rather rapidly to prompting and fading of simple tasks, persons with a developmental challenge or mental illness often respond to such treatments much more slowly. The general procedure for a prompting/fading treatment is as follows:

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1. Determine the desired behavior to be prompted.
2. Present the natural prompt for that behavior. If it is exhibited by the natural prompt, reinforce it.
3. If the natural prompt of a behavior does not evoke the desired target behavior, step up the level of added prompting to the smallest available prompt that may produce the behavior.
4. Continue gradually raising the level of prompt until the behavior has been successfully demonstrated then produced.
5. After the behavior has been evoked, reinforce the behavior and repeat the prompt.
6. Continue prompting and reinforcing the desired behavior until such a point that it is believed that the response is immediately and reliably evoked.
7. Once this occurs attempt to fade the level of prompting by decreasing it a single step lower.
8. If The target behavior is maintained at this level of prompting, continue using it untill it is “reliable and immediate” before reducing it further.
9. If the behavior is not exhibited with the new low level of prompting , go back to the prior successful level of prompting until it has been reestablished fully before attempting to lower the level again.
10. Continue this cycle of reducing prompts until the added prompt is no longer needed to evoke the behavior and the natural one is sufficient and reliable.
11. If at any point during the prompt/fading process, it is suspected that the prompt is no longer necessary, the prompter may omit the prompt or reduce it to its weakest prompting level possible. If the behavior continues, it may no longer need further prompting. The act of testing early to see if a prompt is necessary is called a probe.

Some considerations during this process include how much time someone has to develop this new behavior and how quickly the prompt may be faded. For some persons and some behaviors, the process may take weeks, months, or even years to accomplish. Also when using this method, keep in mind the stamina of the person being trained the new behavior. Often 1-2 minutes a day for weeks or years is more effective than a similar training period of 24 hours over the period of one day to teach a new behavioral response to a prompt.

Commentary on B.F. Skinner’s “Rules to live by article”

In this article, paraphrased in Chance between pages 157-159 B.F. Skinner discusses how a complex task such as playing pool can be done either with complicated mathematical equations, or by simplifying the actual calculations into a more intuitive system of rules or “shortcuts,” that are guided as much by practiced intuition as anything else. In many cases he goes on to explain the rules that we live by are created by long-term consequences for actions whose final effects are not immediately obvious. For instance the long-term health consequences of habitual smoking or drug use are not immediately obvious to those persons who are feeling a “buzz”. Often ethical and legal consequences are used to supplement and assist the natural consequences of certain behaviors to help provide more effective control of certain actions.

Skinner then goes on to speak of several “classical” distinctions between “rule shaped” and “contingency shaped” behaviors.

1. Deliberation vs. Impulse
   Deliberately planned behavior is behavior that is weighed against the rules and contingencies that are observed by the potential behavior producer before the overt behavior that follows. Impulse behavior does not follow this pattern of introspection. A example of deliberate behavior is when in one of Hollywood’s action thrillers, a hero might have an internal moral debate on whether or not to shoot the enemy holding an friend hostage before deciding to “take a chance” and do it. A Hollywood example of the opposite, an impulse action in the exact same hostage scenario would be reflected by the pilot episode of the sci-fi tv drama “Firefly” the character “Mal,” upon seeing a typical hostage situation, shoots the bad guy and dumps his dead body off of his spaceship without a second’s pause or deliberation.

2. Ultimate consequences vs. immediate consequences.
   Rules typically are the only thing that can shape long-term consequences of behavior. Without rules, we would not have mechanisms to control more long term consequences of behavior.

3. Culture-bound vs. “natural” behavior
   Some cultures have different prompts and rules for different behaviors. Only prompts and behaviors that are universal regardless of culture are universally applicable. As the saying goes, “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

7. Logical argument vs. Intuition
   Often people will solve a problem and not know consciously why their answer worked in that situation, just that it did. In many cases, this requires an examination of how the process occurred and why to determine new rules that help control use of the new method of dealing with the problem.

9. Monotony vs. Variety.
   Rule-based behavior typically is more limited in scope and variety of solutions to a problem than purely contingency based solutions.

10 Concious vs. Unconcious

Often the purpose of a rule is to identify the antecedent's variables and stimuli that control a response.

12. Knowing vs. Knowing How
    It is possible in many situations to have some knowledge of a subject but not know how to perform it oneself. A classic example of this is when in a Charles Schulz “Peanuts” comic strip, Charlie Brown, after teaching Snoopy to stand on his head is asked if he can do that. To this, he responds, “Those who can’t do, teach.”
    13. Reason Vs. Passion
    Pasteur is quoted as saying “the heart has reasons which reason cannot know”. This is indicative of the fact that often we have emotive or other causes for performing a behavior that our reason alone cannot completely explain. This leads us to the conclusion that rule-based governance of behavior cannot completely take into account the environmental contingencies that may cause a person to take a particular behavior into effect.

Note this is a "Summary" from chapter 4 my applied behavioral analysis textbook from a few years back with some "personal flavor" in the writing. No, I don't have the citation info handy. Yes, This is educational use. No, I do not "own" or claim any copyright on this content. Yes, if you are a high-powered lawyer representing the original publisher of said book, I will take this down. We cool?