Avoiding Prompt Dependency

Avoiding Prompt Dependency A serious problem for special educators can be to create prompt dependence. In the effort to teach new skills we can create new barriers to success and independence by creating prompt dependence, where a student is unable to work without the application of prompting. The Continuum of Prompting Prompting lies on a continuum from Most to Least, or Least to Most. Most prompts are those which are the most invasive, the full physical prompt. From a full physical prompt, prompting progresses to partial physical prompts (tapping an elbow) and then through verbal prompting and gestural prompting. Professionals make decisions about how best to employ prompting, usually judging the ability of the student. Some students, who are able to imitate, should probably be taught a new activity by modeling with a minimum of prompting. Prompts are intended to be faded, or removed, so that the child can perform the new skill independently. Thats why verbal is in the middle of the continuum, since they can often be harder to fade than gestural prompts. In fact, all too often prompt dependence begins with constant verbal directions teachers give children. The opposite problem can happen as well, as children get tired of constant verbal nagging from significant adults. Plan Your Prompting If students have receptive language and have a history of responding to verbal directions, you will want to plan a least to most prompting protocol. You want to teach or model the activity, give the spoken directive, and then attempt a gestural prompt, such as pointing. If that does not elicit the response/behavior that you wanted, you would progress to the next level, which would be gestural and verbal, Pick up the ball (while pointing to the ball.) At the same time, your teaching may be part of a forward or backward chain, depending on the skill and the skill level of your student. Whether you forward chain ​or backward chain will depend as well on whether you anticipate that your student will succeed best at the first or last step. If you are teaching a child to make pancakes in an electric skillet, you may want to backward chain, and make removing the pancake from the pan the first step you teach, since the reinforcement (eating the pancake) is close at hand. In the same way, planning your task analysis and chaining strategy to guarantee success is a great way to avoid prompt dependency. Children with poor or not receptive language, who dont respond, will need to be prompted most to least starting with full physical prompting, such as hand over hand prompting. There is greater danger of creating prompt dependency when you start at this level. It would probably be good to vary activities, so the student does tasks he or she has mastered interspersed with activities that they are learning. In this way, they are completing unprompted activities while at the same time working on new skills. Fading Fading is planned withdrawal of prompting in order to avoid prompt dependency. Once you have seen the child provide a decent approximation of the behavior or activity you want, you should start withdrawing the prompt . . . perhaps moving to a partial physical prompt (touching the childs hand, rather than a full physical, hand over hand prompt) or to a verbal prompt, paired with re-modeling the activity. Quickly pulling back from the most invasive prompting as quickly as possible is probably one of the most important strategies in avoiding prompt dependency. It means accepting an approximation and moving on, rather than spending too much tie on a single repeated activity. The key, then, is to: Plan your prompting.Mix mastered skills with new skills,Accept approximations of the behavior and start withdrawing prompting andFade as soon as you can.

Fizzy Sherbet Powder Candy Recipe

Fizzy Sherbet Powder Candy Recipe Sherbet powder is a sweet powder that fizzes on the tongue. Its also called sherbet soda, kali, or keli. The usual way to eat it is to dip a finger, lollipop, or licorice whip into the powder. If you live in the right part of the world, you can purchase Dip Dab sherbet powder in a store or online. Its also super easy to make yourself, plus its an educational science project. Ingredients 6 teaspoons citric acid powder or crystals3 tablespoons sodium bicarbonate (baking soda)4 tablespoons (or more, adjust to taste) icing sugar or sweetened powdered drink mix (e.g., Kool-Aid) Substitutions: There are several possible ingredient substitutions that will produce fizzy carbon dioxide bubbles. You can mix-and-match citric acid, tartaric acid, or malic acid for the acidic ingredient.You can use sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), baking powder, sodium carbonate (washing soda), and/or magnesium carbonate as the basic ingredient.The sugar or flavoring is up to you, but its worth knowing most flavored drink mixes contain an acidic ingredient, so if you cant find any of the acids, you can simply combine a flavored drink mix that contains one of the acidic ingredients with any of the basic ingredients.  The ratio of the ingredients is not critical. You can adjust the recipe to add more sugar, a sugar substitute, or a different amount of acidic and basic ingredients. Some recipes call for a 1:1 mix of acidic and basic components, for example. Make Fizzy Sherbet If your citric acid comes as large crystals rather than as a powder, you may wish to crush it with a spoon.Mix together these ingredients.Store sherbet powder in a sealed plastic bag until youre ready to use it. Exposure to moisture starts the reaction between the dry ingredients, so if the powder gets damp before you eat it, it wont fizz.You can eat it as-is, dip a lollipop or licorice into it, or add the powder to water or lemonade to make it fizz. How Sherbet Powder Fizzes The reaction that makes sherbet powder fizz is a variation of the baking soda and vinegar chemical reaction used to make the classic chemical volcano. The fizzy lava in the baking soda volcano forms from the chemical reaction between sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and acetic acid (in vinegar). In fizzy sherbet, sodium bicarbonate reacts with a different weak acid citric acid. The reaction between the base and the acid produces carbon dioxide gas bubbles. These bubbles are the fizz in sherbet.   While the baking soda and citric acid react slightly in the powder from the natural humidity in the air, exposure to water in saliva allows the two chemicals to react much more easily, so much more carbon dioxide fizz is released when the powder gets damp.