YAI Videotape/prompt fading

[Guest guest]

I just watched the videotape “Creating a Classroom for children with Autism and

others Disorders of Relating and Communicating”, created by the YAI/New York

League for Early Learning – I got it after it was mentioned on this list. It

was great to watch dedicated classroom staff working together to help the kids.

I was more interested in the segment showing intensive teaching at the table.

Errorless learning was clearly shown on the videotape. But I was so surprised

that they did not put emphasis on prompt fading. It was mentioned, but except

for 1 task (gross motor imitation for hands up), transfer trials were not

demonstrated in that video. So when the teacher asked to touch/ID some items,

she immediately prompted /pointed to the picture; hence, the correct response

from the student - but this was not followed by a transfer trial. This was true

of other drills like RFCC which were immediately followed by intraverbals.

(Example: the teacher asked : Give me something salty – and she immediately

(point) prompted, so the child handed her the picture of the popcorn. Then she

immediately asked “Something salty are “ (without the picture present), and the

student responded “popcorn”. There were no demos on how she faded the prompt

for the RFCC later.

So my question is – Is it okay to not have a transfer trial immediately after

the first prompted trial? Can the transfer trial be done on the next sitting?

Or several trials away ? - just to keep the “momentum” going? Some children

(like mine) hate the repetitive stimuli (e.g. 2 transfer trials in a row).

Thanks.