You give an instruction and the learner does not respond at all

The situation

You present an instruction from a program the learner has been working on. The learner looks away, stays still, or keeps doing what they were doing. Nothing unsafe is happening. The program has a written prompting procedure.

What the plan usually asks for

1. Wait the interval your program specifies before doing anything else. Many programs build in a response window on purpose. Prompting too early teaches the learner to wait for help.
2. Deliver the next prompt level exactly as the prompting procedure is written. The prompt hierarchy was chosen for this learner. Skipping levels or adding a different kind of help changes the teaching.
3. Reinforce the response the way the program says, including prompted responses if the program says to. Whether prompted responses earn reinforcement is a program decision, and it changes what the data mean.
4. Record the trial as prompted or independent, at the level actually used. Prompt-level data are how the supervisor decides when to fade. Recording an independent response that was prompted hides the learner's real progress.
5. Check whether the learner was attending before the instruction, and note it if not. An instruction given to a learner who was not attending is a different event from one that was attended and not answered.

What not to do

• Do not repeat the instruction several times in a row. Each repetition is a new trial, and it teaches the learner that the first one does not count.
• Do not invent a prompt that is not in the hierarchy, however natural it feels.
• Do not score the trial as correct because the learner eventually got there with help.

When to tell your supervisor

• Tell your supervisor if the learner is not responding across several programs or several sessions, or if the lack of response is new.
• Ask before the next session if you are unsure what the response window or the prompt levels are for this program.

Terms used here

• Prompt
• Prompt Hierarchy
• Transfer of Stimulus Control
• Discrete Trial Training