Evaluating the Replicability of Flexible Prompt Fading for Teaching Tacts

Flexible prompt fading (FPF) is a prompting system which is based upon the instructor’s clinical judgment and in-the-moment assessment of variables that influence continual adjustments to the prompting hierarchy and prompt types used during teaching. To date, the studies evaluating FPF have made use of providing a list of guidelines to interventionists with many years of extensive training and experience with the implementation of FPF and discrete trial teaching alongside higher degrees of education (e.g., master’s level, doctoral level). It is unclear if an interventionist with less experience can implement FPF effectively when provided with the same guidelines and instructions as in previous studies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of FPF when implemented by an interventionist with less experience than those in previous FPF studies. A concurrent multiple baseline design was used to evaluate the replicability and efficacy of FPF for three children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The results indicated that FPF was replicable with this interventionist and effective for teaching all three children to expressively label novel targets.