Our team struggles with this as well. One way we have attempted to decrease this is to work with our ABA team (I'm an SLP) to make sure everyone is on the same page as far as the types of prompts we are giving. We also have worked on making a visual for teachers and paras with the prompt hierarchy that we decided would be the most effective. One area we have focused on is decreasing the amount of verbal prompts that are given and have used picture cues or pointing and a whole lot of wait it out!

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There have been researched based and evidenced based claims around prompt dependency. What we have to learn is that teaching communication and teaching academic skills are different and require different approaches. Our students have often become prompt depend in communication due to our overuse of skill based, academic based or behavioral based training methods that have then been applied to teaching expressive communication.

Expressive communication is more than a cause and effect relationship where someone says something and you say something back or a person has something and you say or say it with a symbol to get it. Expressive communication involves social aspects, visual aspects, auditory aspects, cognitive aspects, so many things that are happening all at once. And when one of those aspects is deterred in any way, the child finds a way through real world experiences and support, through us communicating in their way, in their language - for example using sign language for children who do not hear. You sign and model sign for your kids who are deaf, yes? So with our children who we expect to use symbols, we model the use of symbols, by us using the symbol to talk to them, to others, in lots of situations. We don't just tell the kids to talk with their symbols - they need to see us do it.

So often the prompting and dependency on prompting happens, because kids never see anyone else around them talking with symbols. So of course, it's not going to be their natural tendency. If they see role models around them, using symbols to talk to other people, it becomes more of an expectation.

look for resources on Natural Aided Language from Joanne Cafiero and others

Part of the prompt dependency also lies in those of us who give the prompts. We have become dependent upon the time schedule of the "get it done" in this amount of time. We've got a never ending time clock going on in our head and when our students aren't adhering to it, we are prompting them to the next thing, then the next. We need to replace what's in our head with items such as visual charts, visual and/or auditory schedules that are under the child's control, so that the student has their own calendar, their First-Then boards, count down to breaktime, or whatever management for social adjustments or time adjustments that they need to help manage their knowledge about what is happening around them and for some students, this lessens their anxiety, which lessens the need for so many prompts from staff.

Linda Hodgden at www.usevisualstrategies.com is a good resource