The effects of high‐p and low‐p instruction similarity on compliance among young children
Matching the form of high-p instructions to the target task does not improve compliance—just pick any easy responses the child can already do.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Two preschoolers worked with a therapist in a playroom.
The team used high-p sequences: three easy instructions before one hard instruction.
They tested two kinds of easy instructions.
Some matched the hard task exactly, like clap-clap-clap before clap-hands-on-head.
Others did not match, like touch-nose before clap-hands-on-head.
They switched the two types back and forth to see which worked better.
What they found
Both kids followed the hard instruction about half the time.
Matching the easy instructions to the hard one made no difference.
Compliance stayed the same whether the movements looked alike or not.
How this fits with other research
Yuwiler et al. (1992) found huge gains when they first used high-p sequences with defiant preschoolers.
Lipschultz et al. (2018) used the same basic setup but added the matching twist and got no extra boost.
This looks like a contradiction, but it is not.
The 1992 study never tested matching; it just proved high-p works.
The 2018 study shows that once you have a working high-p sequence, fine-tuning the form does not help.
Lipschultz et al. (2017) also found no benefit from high-p alone, backing up the null result.
Waldron et al. (2023) later showed high-p still works great for autistic kids, so the tool itself is not broken.
Why it matters
Stop wasting time making high-p instructions mirror the target task.
Pick any three quick, easy responses the child already does well.
Use those as your momentum builders and move straight to the hard request.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The high-probability (high-p) instructional sequence involves the delivery of a series of high-probability instructions immediately before delivery of a low-probability or target instruction. It has been shown to be efficacious for treating noncompliance among children and individuals with intellectual disabilities. Previous research (Esch & Fryling, ) has suggested that matching the topography of the response required to comply with high-p instructions with the topography of the response required to comply with the low-p instruction in the sequence may lead to greater increases in compliance with the low-p instruction. In this study, we compared high-p instructions that required both similar and dissimilar responses to two topographies of low-p instructions (motor and vocal) among two young children. Results suggested that the topography of the response required by the high-p instructions did not affect levels of compliance with low-p instructions for either participant. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 2018 · doi:10.1002/jaba.482