An experimental approach for selecting a response-prompting strategy for children with developmental disabilities: A reply to Gast

Abstract

Recently, Gast (2011) wrote a review of our study that compared simultaneous prompting to no–no prompting (Leaf, Sheldon, & Sherman, 2010). This review highlighted the key aspects of our study and provided a critique of certain elements. There are several areas where we disagree with Gast's conclusions. Despite the shortcomings of our study, which we acknowledge, we are satisfied that it still constitutes evidence that a prompting procedure that permits learner errors can be a justifiable and sound teaching strategy. Given the importance to parents and clinicians of selecting an effective and efficient prompting procedure, we felt that a response to Gast's paper was warranted.

Source of funding: No source of funding reported.

Keywords:

• Discrete trial teaching
• Error correction
• Errorless learning
• No-no prompt
• Prompting

Acknowledgments

We wish to thank James Sherman and Jan Sheldon for their help on the original manuscript. We also wish to thank Misty L. Oppenheim-Leaf, Mitch Taubman, John McEachin, and Ronald Leaf for their help on this paper.

Declaration of interest: The perspectives of this manuscript are solely of the lead author (i.e., Justin B. Leaf) and may or may not represent the opinions of the two co-authors (i.e., Jan B. Sheldon & James A. Sherman) of the original paper.