Self-care routines such as handwashing, toothbrushing, grooming, dressing, and showering often involve lengthy response chains. Even when learners can perform many individual steps, they may remain dependent on an adult to initiate the routine, identify the next step, or correct errors.
This course examines the use of self-operated auditory prompting systems, or SOAPs, to increase independent participation in self-care routines. The primary article evaluated prerecorded verbal prompts delivered through a learner-operated device during handwashing and toothbrushing. The researchers used task analyses, recorded prompts with planned pauses, and a multiple-baseline design across students. All participants demonstrated improvement after the auditory prompting system was introduced. auditory auditory
Participants will review the study’s procedures, findings, and limitations and then apply the intervention concepts to two clinical cases involving showering. The course will address learner selection, task analysis, creation of auditory prompts, device operation, error correction, data collection, prompt fading, generalization, maintenance, privacy, dignity, and assent.
The showering cases are presented as applied clinical extensions of the article. The study itself evaluated handwashing and toothbrushing rather than showering. auditory
Required Reading
Mays, N. M., & Heflin, L. J. (2011). Increasing independence in self-care tasks for children with autism using self-operated auditory prompts. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(4), 1351–1357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2011.01.017
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of this course, participants will be able to:
1. Describe how a self-operated auditory prompting system transfers delivery of verbal prompts from an adult to a learner-operated device.
2. Identify learner, task, and environmental variables that should be considered before selecting auditory prompting for a self-care routine.
3. Develop a measurable task analysis that can be converted into a sequence of concise auditory prompts.
4. Design an auditory prompting procedure that includes baseline measurement, device-use instruction, error correction, reinforcement, and mastery criteria.
5. Analyze self-care data to determine whether an auditory prompting intervention is improving independent performance.
6. Differentiate between independent task completion with an auditory support, dependence on an adult prompt, and performance without programmed prompts.
7. Develop a plan for fading auditory prompts or maintaining them as an individualized support when continued use is appropriate.
8. Identify privacy, dignity, consent, assent, and safety considerations associated with auditory prompting during intimate self-care routines.
