Chapter 10

GRADUATED 
GUIDANCE
Presented by:
evelyn balandra
beed-sped
 WHAT TO EXPECT TO LEARN IN THIS
CHAPTER
 In this chapter you will be able to learn the
meaning of Graduated Guidance, the Three
Components and Techniques on How to Use
those parts in training.
 You will also learn the Comparison of
Backward Chaining and Graduated
Guidance, the disadvantages of Backward
chaining.
DEFINITION OF TERMS:
 GRADUATED GUIDANCE – is a technique, combining physical guidance and fading in which the physical guidance
is systematically and gradually reduced and then faded completely.
 Graduated guidance is a physical prompting procedure where·in   hand-over-hand guidance is used to lead an
individual through a chain of behaviors (Miltenberger, 1997). Over time, less and less assistance is used to
prompt the chain of behaviors until a shadow prompt is used.
 GRADUATED GUIDANCE IS USED AS FOLLOWS:
1. Exert no more force at any given moment than is needed to move the student’s hand in the desired direction.
3. At the start of each trial, use the minimal force (even a touch) and build up until the hand starts moving.
4. Once the hand starts to move, decrease the guidance instantly and gradually as long as the guided hand
continuous to move.
5. If movement stops during a trial, increase the guiding force instantly and gradually to the point where
movement again results.
6. If the guided hand pushes against you in the direction away from the proper motion, apply just enough force to
counteract that force, thereby keeping the resisting hand in a non-moving position.
7. As soon as the resisting hand decreases the degree of opposing force, instantly decrease the amount of force
so that the student’s resistance is again just being counterbalanced.
8. When the guided hand stops actively resisting, immediately but gradually start again to use just enough force to
move the guided hand.
9. Once a trial starts, continue to guide the hand until the response is completed, do not give up or interrupt before
the final step.
10. At the end of the trial, give a reinforcer.
11. The reinforcer should be given together with the desired physical effect produced by the completion of the
response.
12. When the reinforcer is about to be given at the completion of the response, eliminate the guidance by
withdrawing even touch contact and then give the reinforcer.
13. Verbal praise should also be given during the guidance but only at those moments when the student is actively
participating in the movement and never while he is resisting or completely passive.
THREE COMPONENTS OF GRADUATED GUIDANCE
 1. FULL GRADUATED GUIDANCE – During Full Graduated
Guidance the instructor keeps her hands in full contact
with the student’s hands. She praises the students
continuously as long as his student is moving his hands
willingly in the desired direction.
 EXAMPLE OF FULL GRADUATED GUIDANCE:
 The instructor begins full graduated guidance, she
puts the pants on the students so that they are at his
ankles, she then says, “Pants Up” and guides the student’s
hands to the waistband of his pants. The instructor begins
guiding the student’s hands in raising his pants to his
waist, as the pants are being raised, she praises him
whenever he makes the slightest effort to raise the pants
himself. The instructor keeps her hands on the student’s
hands throughout the training trial, from the beginning of
the verbal prompt “Pants Up” until the pants are raised to
his waist. At this point an edible and a social reinforcer are
given.

 2. PARTIAL GRADUATED GUIDANCE. – During
the partial graduated guidance, the
instructor merely guides the student’s hands
with her thumb and forefinger. In this way,
the instructor fades the amount of physical
contact so that the student takes more
responsibility for raising his pants. The
teacher continuous to praise all of the
student’s efforts to raise his pants, as well
as when he allows her to use the partial
graduated guidance, saying something such
as “That’s good, you’re raising your pants,
Good, keep raising your pants. Keep going,
Good, pants up. Good”.
 3. Shadowing – During shadowing, the instructor
keeps her hands within an inch of the student’s
hands throughout the pants raising trial. The use
of shadowing permits the instructor to fade her
physical contact so that it no longer serves as a
physical prompts, in this way, the student begins
to attend only to the instructor’s verbal prompts.
 ADVANTAGES OF GRADUATED GUIDANCE.
 1. You don’t need to wait for the student to
respond . You are guiding the student in
performing the behavior chain, which ensures
that the student will always be successful in
performing all the responses in the and that
there will be no lost training time while waiting
for the student to respond.
 2. It allows within trial reinforcement.
 3. It incorporates avoidance learning.

 ACTIVITIES:

 CHAPTER 11
 BASELINE MEASUREMENT
 In this chapter you will learn how to measure the natural
occurrence of a target behavior, using one of the two
methods, and how to decide when enough measurement
has been done for instruction to begin.
 Measurement of a naturally occurring behavior reveals its
operant level.
Operant level is a description of the frequency of a

behavior before instruction begins.

Example: Mr. Weir would like to develop a program to

increase the number of foods that Mickey, an autistic

youngster, will eat. Before beginning the program, Mr Weir
should determine how many different foods Mickey
presently will eat. Mr. Weir will use this information to
determine the effectiveness of the program by simply
comparing the number of foods Mickey eats prior to
training versus the number he eats after training.
Baseline Period – the period of time during which a

behavior is observed and measured before the

intervention.
 TAKING BASELINE
 Determining an operant level of behavior by
taking a baseline measurement can be
accomplished in a variety of ways depending
on the particular behavior you wish to
measure.
Two common ways in taking a baseline

1. Frequency Counting – is a recording method

in which the number of times a behavior

occurs during a specified period of time is
tallied. Frequency counting is a general
method in which you tally the number of times
the behavior occurs by simply placing a check
mark (√) on a sheet of paper
 Example of frequency counting:
 You wish to determine how often your student,
Mary kelly, will independtly feed herself with
a spoon during lunch.
 Response Prompt Fading
(Transferring from Response Prompts to natural
 cues)

 Graduated guidance
 Shadowing
 has the teacher following the student’s movements
with her hands very near but not touching the
child. The teacher then gradually increases the
distance of her hands from the student.
 Spatial fading
 involves gradually changing the location of the
manual prompt.
 e.g., if the manual prompt is used for a hand
movement, the teacher can move the prompt
from the hand to the wrist, to the elbow, to the
shoulder, and then to no manual contact.
