Prompting procedures are effective for teaching skills, but limited comparative data exist to guide practitioners to select the best procedures for individuals. This study compared efficiency of two prompting procedures—constant time delay (CTD) and system of least prompts (SLP)—to teach expressive identification of 32 targets to 10 preschoolers with and without disabilities. To assess efficiency differences between conditions and analyze changes in learning over time, we used adapted alternating treatments designs in the measurement context of cumulative records. CTD was more efficient for five children, SLP was more efficient for three children, and results were inconclusive for two children. We measured children’s choices between procedures via simultaneous treatments designs, to assess child preference and whether preferences and efficiency aligned. Preference outcomes were mixed and did not consistently align with efficiency. We used exploratory analyses to assess whether child characteristics moderated outcomes. Children for whom CTD was more efficient had significantly fewer sessions to mastery, non-significantly fewer errors, and non-significantly higher developmental assessment scores, compared to children for whom SLP was more efficient.

提示程序对于教授技能是有效的，但用于指导从业者为个人选择最佳程序的比较数据有限。本研究比较了两种提示程序的效率——恒定时间延迟 (CTD) 和最少提示系统 (SLP)——向 10 名有残疾和没有残疾的学龄前儿童教授 32 个目标的表达识别。为了评估条件之间的效率差异并分析学习随时间的变化，我们在累积记录的测量上下文中使用了经过调整的交替治疗设计。CTD对五个孩子更有效，SLP对三个孩子更有效，两个孩子的结果不确定。我们通过同步治疗设计来衡量儿童在程序之间的选择，评估儿童偏好以及偏好和效率是否一致。偏好结果喜忧参半，与效率不一致。我们使用探索性分析来评估儿童特征是否会影响结果。与 SLP 效率更高的儿童相比，CTD 效率更高的儿童掌握的课程要少得多，错误也没有显着减少，发展评估分数也没有显着提高。