Let Them Do it Themselves!
Teaching Everyday Skills and Fostering
Independence in your child at every
age
Deborah R Whitman BCBA
District Behavior Analyst
New Rochelle City Schools
What are the goals at home?
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Independently completing homework without stress
Developing appropriate leisure activities
Participating in family activities
Cooperating with house hold chores
Independent ADL skills
Taking care of personal belongings such as their
room, clothing etc…
How do we get our kids to do these
things now?
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Good strategies
Check charts
Appropriate prompting
Praise
Contracts
Positive reinforcement
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Not so great…
Yelling
Threatening
Repeating directions over
and over
 Punishing
 Guilt
 Avoiding the situation
altogether
Independence Plans
 Independence plans as they can be used at home help
you set reasonable goals and plan step by step criteria
for your children to achieve greater independence
over time with careful prompting and more specific
steps allowing for more positive feedback and less
frustration for all involved both the child and the
parents.
What is an independence Plan?
 An independence plan is a scripted curriculum that
contains specific goals towards independent skills,
identifying where when and how a skill will be
practiced and with what prompts and support. It also
contains specific short term objectives as benchmarks
towards that long term goal.
Parts of the Independence Plan
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Long term goal
Where, when, how often description of behavior
Current short term objective
Current prompt levels
Specific directions for child and helper
Specific levels for criteria
Data and method for assessing mastery
Long Term Goal
 What is the skill that you want your child to be able do
long term? This can be within a few months or even a
few years.
 Example:
 John will be able to sit down at his desk and open his
agenda book and complete each homework
assignment with parent giving only initial direction
and 2-3 verbal prompts or praises for up to an hour.
Additional examples of LTG
 Given the direction: “clean up your room” Sue will go
to room, pick up anything that is on the floor, make
her bed, throw away the trash and organize her desk
without negative talk or arguing within 5 minutes of
being given the direction and with no more than 2
additional verbal encouragements from Mom or
other caregivers from another room. She will
complete the task within 20 minutes.
For Family Events
 When Mom calls Josh will come to the table for
dinner, sit at his place, eat his food slowly, and
participate in conversation by making at least two
remarks appropriate to the topic and asking at least
one question inquiring as to someone’s day and
making eye contact when they respond. He will
remain at the table for at least 15 minutes.
Leisure Activities
 Camille will pick a non-electronic activity such as
drawing, building, do a craft or reading a book and
continue engaging in that activity for 10-15 minutes
without a parent in the room and with no more than 3
prompts from a parent in an adjacent room.
Short term objectives
 A short term objective is a step towards the long
term goal. Some goals require many short term
objectives some only a few. Short term
objectives allow the child to have success in some
aspect of the long term goal and build skills.
 We use short term goals all the time and those
who successfully reach long term goals usually
set specific short term goals along the way.
Examples of STOs
 For John doing homework
 STO 1- John will sit at his desk, take out his agenda
book and find the first assignment with <4
prompts from Mom. He will then start the first
assignment and work it through completion with
<6 verbal prompts and a parent staying in the
room. He will complete each assignment with <6
prompts taking a 5 minute break between each
one.
Cleaning room
 Given the direction “clean your room” Sue will go into
her room with parent who will direct Sue to pick up
items on floor, make bed and organize desk. Sue will
complete the room clean up with verbal directions for
each step from her parent who will reinforce her
intermittently throughout.
Eating at the table
 When called to dinner Josh will come to the table and
sit down eating his food appropriately and
responding to at least 1 question posed to him with a
prompt. He will remain at the table for five minutes
and can leave when the timer rings. He will
reinforced with positive comments at least twice for
being at the table.
Using Prompting
 Identifying prompts for your child will allow you to
help them be successful at whatever their current
abilities are and work from a strength base place
rather than from their weaknesses and reinforce
progress.
 Types of prompts include verbal prompts, physical
prompts, text prompts and gestural prompts as well
as modeling.
Verbal prompts
Good Verbal Prompts
 Sue get your agenda book and
your notebook and sit down at
the table.
 Please read the next two
pages yourself
 Please go upstairs and open
your drawer and take out your
pajamas
Not so great….
 Sue…what are you supposed
to be doing? Where is your
agenda book? Why do I have
to tell you this every night?
 Read the chapter and I will be
back
 Get ready for bed
Physical Prompts
Any prompts that require you to touch your child to
assist them. Often physical prompts can be better than
verbal because they are often easier to fade. Try and
use physical prompts from appropriate angle to foster
independence always attempting to fade as soon as
possible.
Text and Picture Prompts
 Any prompt that is written is a text prompt. If you list
the steps to complete a task and let your child check
them off. You can have your child read the steps or
point to them as you read. Picture prompts are
similar but are pictures rather than words. Can be
combined with verbal or physical prompts. Very good
for teaching multiple step activities.
Gestural prompts and Modeling
 Gestural prompts are non-verbal prompts where you
are giving help without touching your child or talking.
You can develop specific gestures that communicate
a signal or model a step or activity and the child can
copy your model.
 Examples include: thumbs up, pointing to answer or
desired behavior, modeling the activity (such as ADL
skills)
Specific steps to follow
 Part of the plan where you specifically list what kind
of help, when, by whom and for how long.
 i.e. – John will sit down at his desk, open his
homework folder and work for ten minutes on his
math with only verbal prompts from me from the
same room.
ADL and Leisure Skills
 Sue will brush her teeth with me standing behind her
giving 1 physical prompt at the wrist to help open the
toothpaste and then just light touches at the elbow
to do all the other steps
 Joe will play with legos or puzzles at the table for ten
minutes with me sitting next to him and pointing to
the pieces.
Setting Goals and Criteria
 When Sue can do each step of tooth brushing
correctly with elbow touches for two consecutive
nights then I will fade the physical prompts and
model or gesture if necessary
 Make sure to celebrate the criteria met and set the
new STO giving less prompts but set up your child for
success.
Independence Plan
Activity
Long Term Goal
Short Term Objective
Directions and prompt levels
Weekly
progress
Criteria met
date