Instructional Strategies

1. Antecedent Prompts

Antecedent prompts are cues or modifications teachers use to help students respond correctly when natural cues are not enough. These prompts should be subtle, temporary, and faded over time to avoid dependency. 

Effective antecedent prompting is characterized by the following guidelines：

• Prompts should focus student attention on the natural cue

• Prompts should be as weak as possible.

• Prompts should be faded as rapidly as possible.

• Unplanned prompts should be avoided.

A number of types of antecedent prompts are available:

Expanded Feature Prompts – adding extra details (e.g., tracing dotted letters for writing).

Relevant Feature Prompts – highlighting important parts (e.g., color-coding a sweater tag to show the back).

Proximity Prompts – placing the correct item closer to the student (e.g., fork in front, spoon farther away).

Associative Prompts – pairing abstract with concrete (e.g., word fork with a picture).

Modeling – teacher demonstrates behavior first.

Match-to-Sample – student imitates a provided sample item.

Self-Operated Picture or Auditory Prompts – step-by-step visual charts or recorded cues.

2. Learning strategies

Learning strategies emphasize how students learn, rather than what they learn. They are especially helpful for students with mild or no cognitive impairment. Strategies include: describing and modeling the process, practicing, and rehearsing. Mnemonics, music, rhymes, and mental imagery are often used to improve memory and comprehension.

Many of them involve teaching the student a mnemonic in which each letter stands for a particular part of the strategy. For example, a general strategy for each physical and health management learning task is teaching the mnemonic "You need to have ESP" (E, know the equipment; S, know the steps; P know the problems and what to do).

3. Response Prompts

To teach and shape a behavior that is either absent from the student's repertoire or incompletely performed, instruction involves providing guidance and assistance in the actual performance of the behavior, which takes the form of response prompts. These prompts are used to help the student initiate a motor response, provide guided practice, and inhibit the student from practicing errors. Furthermore, they can reinforce correct performance to increase its future probability, shape an approximation of the desired response, or correct an incorrect one.

Full physical prompt involves complete hand-over-hand assistance to guide the entire motor behavior, minimizing errors. 

Partial physical prompt offers limited physical assistance to initiate or direct a movement, which is faded as the student begins the response.

Model prompt occurs when the teacher demonstrates the behavior for the student to imitate coactively. 

Gesture prompt uses nonverbal signals, like pointing or raising hands, to indicate the correct behavior.

Verbal prompt provides additional verbal assistance beyond the initial instruction, which can be a direct cue, a question, encouragement, or a rule.

4. Demonstration-Guided Practice-Independent Practice Model

This three-step model is widely used with students who have mild to no cognitive impairments:

1. Demonstration – teacher explains and models the skill (sometimes using equipment or models).

2. Guided Practice – student practices with teacher’s support, corrections, and feedback.

3. Independent Practice – student performs independently with feedback as needed.

This method ensures mastery through scaffolding, gradually moving responsibility to the student while maintaining safety and accuracy.