Prompts Analysis

Prompting:
A prompt is defined by (Cooper et al.) as “supplementary antecedent stimuli used to occasion a correct response in the presence of an SD that will eventually control the behavior”. This basic definition follows the similar guidelines of e.g., Foxx, 1982) who discussed that prompts were any “auxiliary”, “extra”, or “artificial” stimuli that were presented along with the stimuli that would eventually become the relevant stimuli to the circumstance, or the controlling stimuli. According to Miltenberger (1997), these prompts are then just used as a means to increase the likelihood that the individual responding would then engage in the correct behavior. That is exactly what the purpose of a prompt becomes, to facilitate the learning of the individual when the discriminative stimulus alone is not enough. These prompts can be before or after, the discriminative stimulus. Prompts can be a response prompt, meaning it is used directly in conjunction with the response, or stimulus prompts, used in conjunction with the antecedent (Cooper et al). Yet the goal for the terminal response should always be that the SD controls the behavior, not the prompt. Prompts can thus include a range of components such as instructions, gestures, demonstrations, touches, or any other arrangement that can increase the likelihood of correct responses McClannahan and Krantz (1999). The prompts are very typically used in not only every day learning, but are a common part of applied behavior analytic work.
For the purpose of comparing prompt interventions that have to deal with child responding we will look at response prompts specifically. Cooper et al list three major forms of response prompts. These are identified as verbal instructions, modeling, a...

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..., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2001). They suggest to define the target behavior and then identify what prompts are suitable. The goal of the treatment should be then to prompt, reinforce, and fade as quickly as possible and monitor the results to adjust the procedure as necessary.

Ethical considerations:
Ethical considerations would come in the form of future use and if a prompting procedure were found to be more effective, it is the one that should be used. The ethical consideration should be made that if a prompting procedure is deemed to have a faster acquisition of a behavior set, then it would be unethical to continue the use of other prompting procedures. Furthermore ethical procedures should be in place as per guidelines such as MacDuff, G. S., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2001) to be able to minimize prompt dependency during trials.