Comparison of SP and NNP | BCBA CEU | Learning | 0.5 Hour

 In this presentation, Dr. Justin B. Leaf reviews a 2010 study published in the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis comparing simultaneous prompting and no-no prompting in two-choice discrimination tasks with children diagnosed with autism. The speaker clarifies that neither system is endorsed for clinical practice within the Autism Partnership method, though components are considered important for teaching.

The presentation defines prompt types (controlling and non-controlling) and distinguishes prompting systems from prompt types. No-no prompting is described as involving an initial independent trial, followed by corrective feedback (“no”) and remedial trials, with the third trial including a controlling prompt that guarantees success. The speaker explains that no-no prompting is more sophisticated in two-choice discriminations because corrective feedback reduces the field from 50/50 to 100% likelihood, but loses effectiveness as the number of stimuli increases.

Simultaneous prompting is described as a near errorless learning procedure in which a controlling prompt is delivered immediately (zero-second delay) on every teaching trial, with learning assessed via daily probe trials without prompts.

Using a parallel treatments design, three children were taught skill sets under both systems. Across 10 total sets, no-no prompting reached mastery in 10/10 sets, whereas simultaneous prompting reached mastery in 1/10 sets. No-no prompting was also more efficient and generally showed higher maintenance. The speaker concludes that corrective feedback and error correction were more effective and efficient than errorless procedures in this study and should not be avoided in practice.