A Comparison of Variations of Prompt Delay During Instruction on an Expressive Labeling Task
Progressive prompt delay beats constant 2-s or 5-s delays—fewer errors and faster mastery when teaching expressive labels.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Four kids with autism and intellectual disability needed to learn expressive labels.
The team tried three prompt-delay styles in the same session: progressive delay, 2-s constant delay, and 5-s constant delay.
They used an alternating-treatments design so each child got all three methods every day.
What they found
Progressive prompt delay won.
Kids made fewer errors and reached mastery faster than with either 2-s or 5-s constant delays.
The 5-s constant delay created the most mistakes.
How this fits with other research
Koegel et al. (2014) also found faster labeling gains, but they compared receptive-label arrays, not prompt timing.
Mansell et al. (2002) showed a 5-s delay helped visual discrimination, yet here a 5-s constant prompt hurt expressive labeling.
The difference is task: J’s delay came before the correct picture appeared, while O’Neill’s delay came after the question, giving kids time to guess wrong.
Weyman et al. (2024) used constant delay to fade prompt dependency in FCT; O’Neill’s data say constant delays still risk errors during new label teaching.
Why it matters
If you run expressive-label programs, swap your fixed 2-s or 5-s prompt for a progressive delay.
Start at 0 s, then move to 2 s, 3 s, 5 s as the child succeeds.
You should see fewer errors and reach mastery in fewer sessions—saving you and your learner time.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
AbstractVariations in prompt delay procedures are used in discrete-trial training to reduce the occurrence of errors before task mastery. However, the variations are seldom compared systematically. Using an adapted alternating treatments design, the present study compared progressive prompt delay with 2-s or 5-s constant prompt delay, on the acquisition of an expressive labeling task in four participants with autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability. While all three prompt delay methods led to mastery of the tasks, albeit only when the tasks were simplified for one participant, progressive prompt delay generally proved the most efficient method on several measures, including lower error rates. This is consistent with the nature of the progressive prompt delay procedure which allows less time for errors to occur early in training. It is provisionally concluded that selection of progressive prompt delay is supported as a wise first choice option for clinicians, as a history of high error rates may impair later learning.
Journal of Behavioral Education, 2022 · doi:10.1007/s10864-020-09407-0