Carlos is learning letter recognition, starting with identifying the letter “C”. Typically when learning a new skill or concept, Carlos gets upset when he gets an answer wrong. Recently, he threw a heavy object in the classroom after repeatedly responding with an incorrect answer. Carlos’s teacher wants to teach Carlos the letter “C” without provoking frustration.
Where can the teacher begin to teach this new concept to Carlos? 
The key is in errorless learning and prompt fading – helpful tools for teaching students with moderate to severe disabilities new or replacement skills.
In this blog, we’ll discuss:
Errorless learning is a teaching strategy in which instruction is structured so that the student makes as few errors as possible. In practice, it means providing the level of support needed to ensure the student responds correctly. Errorless learning can be especially helpful for students with learning disorders or developmental disabilities to:
Prompts are cues delivered to a student to get a desired response. Prompts typically fall under the categories of physical, modeling, visual, gestural, and verbal. Physical prompts are generally considered the most intrusive because they provide the most direct support. Verbal prompts may seem less intrusive, but they can actually be difficult to fade since students may become dependent on them. The goal of prompting is to provide the amount of support necessary for success and then systematically fade and remove prompts over time.
Research has shown errorless learning to be an effective teaching strategy for students with moderate to severe disabilities because it reduces errors, increases correct practice opportunities, and helps keep motivation high. When students respond correctly, whether independently or with a prompt, they can access reinforcement right away. This strengthens the correct response and makes it more likely to occur again in the future. By prompting the student to respond correctly, the student is less likely to engage in challenging behavior to escape or avoid the learning task. By gradually decreasing prompts over time, the student learns to complete the skill independently with minimal frustration. Errorless learning keeps the learner engaged, successful, and confident while consistently pairing learning with positive reinforcement.
In practice, errorless learning and prompt fading work together by ensuring the student has the correct response from the start and then gradually reducing the level of support until the student can complete the skill independently.
Let’s go back to the example of Carlos and how the educator would teach him the letter “C” using the tools of errorless learning and prompt fading.
Our K-12 standards-first, adapted core curriculum, enCORE, is built on evidence-based strategies that align with the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis. Time delay and prompting are embedded throughout enCORE using discrete trial training.
enCORE uses a specific type of errorless learning called progressive time delay. In lessons and units throughout enCORE you will see “Zero-Second Delay Round” and “Four-Second Delay Round” referenced regularly (zero-second time delay is another term for errorless teaching). In a zero-second delay, the teacher provides the direction and immediately provides the correct response; there is no pause between delivering the instruction and providing the student a prompt and the correct response.
Progressive time delay gradually increases the time between the instruction and the correct answer. With a four-second time delay the teacher provides the instruction and waits four seconds for the student to respond. If the student doesn’t respond within four seconds, a prompt is provided for the correct answer. By delaying the time between the instruction and the prompt within the enCORE curriculum, the learner gets the opportunity to give a correct response on their own. The delay is gradually increased as the learner becomes more independent with the skill and prompts are eventually faded altogether.
If you’d like to learn more about the K-12 standards-first, adapted core curriculum, enCORE, schedule a consultation with a member of our team today.
Contributor Bio
Tasha McKinney brings over eight years of experience in education. After four years of teaching outdoor education programs, she pursued a Master’s in Early Childhood Special Education at the University of Texas. Since then, she has worked in classroom settings and created content for EdTech companies.