A systematic review of the use of prompting for preschoolers with developmental delay

What is it about?

Given the importance of early childhood education, this systematic review examined the effect of prompting in the acquisition of new skills for preschoolers with developmental delay (DD). Namely, this review aimed to explore the relationship between types of prompts and disabilities, types of prompts and target skills, and the effectiveness of prompting to enhance target skills.

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Why is it important?

Preschool offers numerous opportunities for teaching cognitive, social, emotional, and language skills. This is particularly important for children with DD, who often struggle with cognitive, physical, communication, social/emotional, and adaptive development. Prompting using verbal, gestural, and physical guidance has been widely used to teach new behaviors or skills, with its effectiveness well documented for interventions, particularly among students with autism spectrum disorder. Fourteen studies using single-subject research design across nine journals served as the basis of this review. Participants' demographics, experimental design, target skills, types of prompting, independent and dependent variables, degree to which the prompting was effective, pairing, and number of prompts used in an intervention were extracted from each study and analyzed. The findings revealed the importance of prompting, and its various forms, for children with DD to support their strengths and enhance targeted skills as needed.

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