Graduated guidance is a useful technique for teaching children with autism, particularly for teaching skills that involve a series of steps. This method starts with providing the most help, like physically guiding the child’s actions, and then gradually reducing that help as the child learns. For example, you might start by fully guiding the child’s hand, then use less direct assistance, like just touching the child’s wrist, and finally, just standing by as a shadow without giving physical help. The key is to adjust the level of help based on how well the child is doing, and if they make a mistake, you go back to a higher level of support until they’re ready to move on again (Eliçin & Tunalı, 2016).
Intervention Goals:
Use graduated guidance to assist the child in selecting the correct picture or word, starting with the least amount of physical assistance and increasing support only as needed.
Systematically reduce the level of physical prompting from full to minimal, promoting greater independence in performing matching tasks.
Utilize graduated guidance to ensure the child makes correct selections and to help him decrease repetitive touching of pictures, thereby reinforcing correct responses with minimal intervention.
Employ graduated guidance to support the child through different matching tasks (picture-to-picture, word-to-picture, etc.), ensuring he achieves accurate matching with reduced dependency on physical prompts.
Session setup:
The child is seated at a table with the iPad directly in front of them. The iPad is turned on and set to the screen displaying four pictures/words.
The instructor shows the child a picture/word card and instructs them to match it with the corresponding item on the iPad.
Instructional Procedure:
Prompt 1: Natural Cue
The child is initially given a 10-second delay to respond independently to the matching task. They are asked, “What do you see on this card?” without additional prompting.
Prompt 2: Minimal Physical Prompt
If the child does not respond or makes an incorrect selection within the 10-second delay, minimal physical prompting is applied. This involves gently guiding their hand to the iPad to keep their hands on the table.
Prompt 3: Moderate Physical Prompt
If the child continues to struggle, moderate physical prompting is used. This involves providing firmer guidance to help them select the correct picture/word on the iPad.
Prompt 4: Maximum Physical Prompt
For cases where the child requires more support, maximum physical prompting is used. This includes direct hand-over-hand assistance to guide them in selecting the correct match on the iPad.
Feedback and Reinforcement:
Differential social reinforcement (e.g., “Great matching!”) and tangible rewards (e.g., a potato chip) are given immediately after correct responses, whether independent or prompted.
Social reinforcement is used to encourage on-task behaviour, such as keeping hands on the table.
Prompt Fading:
Progressively reduce the level of physical guidance over sessions.
Initially, graduated guidance includes more substantial prompts, which are gradually faded to minimal or no prompts as the child’s skill improves.
Maintenance and Generalization:
The child is tested on different matching tasks (picture-to-picture, word-to-picture, picture-to-word, and word-to-word) and in different contexts.
Follow-up sessions and random order phases are conducted to ensure the learned skills are maintained and generalized across different tasks and settings.
Eliçin, Ö., & Tunalı, V. (2016). Effectiveness of tablet computer use in achievement of schedule-following skills by children with autism using graduated guidance. Egitim ve Bilim, 41(183).
van der Meer, L., Achmadi, D., Cooijmans, M., Didden, R., Lancioni, G. E., O’Reilly, M. F., ... & Sigafoos, J. (2015). An iPad-based intervention for teaching picture and word matching to a student with ASD and severe communication impairment. Journal of Developmental and Physical Disabilities, 27, 67-78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10882-014-9401-5