Instruction for learners with Autism has previously involved either errorless learning or trial-and-error procedures to deliver targeted learning outcomes; however these procedures are rarely compared. The principal aim of this series of investigations was to determine through direct comparisons, which variation of prompt delay, relative to each other, and to that of trial-and-error, was most efficacious. Effectiveness and efficiency measures were used to directly compare a 5-s progressive prompt delay condition, a 5-s constant prompt delay condition, a 2-s constant prompt delay condition and a trial-and-error condition (Experiment 2). An adapted alternating treatments design was used throughout this series of investigations to rapidly and concurrently compare each condition on its ability to teach conditional discriminations in both an expressive and receptive language task to twelve learners diagnosed as having Autism and co-occurring learning difficulties. Findings allow us to conclude that the 5-s progressive prompt delay condition was overall associated with the fewest number of training trials, errors, percentage of errors, behaviours that would challenge or compete with learning, stereotypy and duration of training time. Therefore in relation to the alternative variations of prompt delay and trial-and-error methods compared here, the 5-s progressive prompt delay procedure is supported as superior. This procedure represents the choice default variation of prompt delay in the acquisition of novel skills. This evidence, it is hoped, will better inform behavioural clinicians to discriminate between an array of available instructional procedures for use with ASD clients.
| Date of Award | Jan 2015 |
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| Original language | English |
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| Sponsors | Department for Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland |
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| Supervisor | Julian Leslie (Supervisor) & Claire McDowell (Supervisor) |
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- prompt delay
- time delay
- ASD instruction
A direct comparison of three prompt delay procedures in children and young people with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD)
O'Neill, S. J. (Author). Jan 2015
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis