Teaching Young Children with Special Needs and Their Peers to Play Board Games: Effects of a Least to Most Prompting Procedure to Increase Independent Performance.
Least-to-most prompting gets preschoolers with autism playing board games alone, but you must keep some support or add small rewards so the play lasts.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Robertson et al. (2014) worked with 24 preschoolers who have autism.
The team used least-to-most prompting to teach the kids to play board games without help.
Adults gave only as much help as each child needed, then pulled the help away.
What they found
The children learned to set up and play simple board games on their own.
When the adults stopped giving prompts, most kids still needed some support or the play dropped off.
How this fits with other research
Roscoe et al. (2024) built on this idea and got stronger, lasting play by adding small rewards (DRA) to the same prompting steps.
Aljehany et al. (2020) compared least-to-most with video prompts for teens doing office tasks. Video won for two of three kids, showing the method still works but may not be the fastest route.
Putnam et al. (2003) flipped the order and used more-to-less prompting with toddlers. Play still rose, so the direction of help may matter less than matching the child’s need.
Why it matters
Use least-to-most prompting when you want calm, adult-led teaching of new play steps. Plan to keep light supports or add tiny rewards (see Roscoe et al., 2024) so the skill sticks after you back off.
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Join Free →Try a least-to-most prompt sequence for one board game, then add brief praise or token rewards on the final step to see if play stays high when you fade.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Early forms of play involving the exploration of objects is repetitive and limited in scope in children with autism, consistent with a weak drive towards central coherence. The importance is stressed of early manipulative and relational play for the development of meaningful perceptual representations and the subsequent development of functional and symbolic play. It is argued that intervention designed to promote these early forms of play is therefore of critical importance. A 'toy-play' intervention programme is described that was initially used in a research setting with 24 children with autism, using outcome measures and a 1 year follow-up assessment. The original intervention was successful. However, improvements in play were not maintained unless children continued to receive play support. A 'play stimulation' programme building on the toy-play programme is therefore now carried out with children in small groups after completion of the one-to-one toy-play programme.
Behavior analysis in practice, 2014 · doi:10.1177/1362361303007004007