By Tabitha O’Neal

As children grow, it is important for them to gain skills that enable them to function successfully in various areas of life, from brushing their teeth to making friends or coping with stress. Whether you are a parent, caregiver, or teacher, you play a valuable role in equipping children with skills they need to be successful.

Sometimes, children appear to pick up skills relatively easily, where you feel as if you had little, if any, involvement. For example, one day, you see your child demonstrating impressive problem-solving skills by redistributing the toys on their shelves so that they are all easily accessible. On the other hand, the development of some skills may come as more of a challenge, where the involvement and support of one or more adults may be needed for a child to master them. As an example, a child may struggle to effectively communicate, and in turn, regulate their emotions by tending to rely on crying, screaming, or stomping when presented with stressful or unpreferred situations. For skills that appear to be particularly challenging, which can vary from one child to the next, how do we help? A few foundational, evidence-based techniques for promoting skill-acquisition in children and adolescents are modeling, prompting, and role-playing (Spence, 2003; Watkins et al., 2017). These techniques are discussed below.

Modeling

Modeling is a reasonably simple, yet powerful technique to utilize when a child is learning a new skill. An example of modeling and its effect on children’s behavior is the famous study conducted by a renowned researcher in the field of social psychology, Albert Bandura. The experiments conducted by Bandura and his colleagues are often referred to as the Bobo Doll experiments. These experiments utilized an inflated, upright-standing doll and consisted of children either seeing an adult verbally and physically abuse the doll, seeing an adult verbally and physically abuse the doll and another adult correct and admonish this behavior, or not seeing an adult abuse the doll. Children who watched the adult’s abusive behavior toward the doll (without correction) were more likely to repeat the behavior toward the doll themselves when given the opportunity. Children who watched the adult be corrected and admonished or did not see the abuse were less likely to demonstrate these types of aggressive behaviors toward the doll (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961).

Simply put, modeling is where an individual demonstrates a behavior or skill in front of another. For example, a father may model the skill of active listening during a conversation with another adult with his daughter present by making sure to maintain eye-contact, nod his head, and refrain from doing anything with his hands. As you may have guessed, adults are oftentimes modeling various behaviors for children without intentionally doing so – which can be positive or negative and something to monitor for ourselves. Fortunately, we can also actively plan to model certain behaviors and skills for children. After modeling a skill for a child, asking follow-up questions to check for understanding and providing positive feedback can be good ways to reinforce their learning (Bandura, 1965; Engarhos et al., 2021).

Prompting

A common way of prompting a child to do a task is by using verbal statements (e.g., “Bobby, make your bed and pick up your toys.”); however, there are multiple ways of prompting. Other examples of prompting include the use of gestures and physical guidance. Prompting hierarchies have been developed that identify and order various types of prompting into increasing levels of provided support (MacDuff et al., 2001).

A basic prompting hierarchy is structured from verbal as the lowest to gestural, visual, modeling, and physical as the highest in support. When a child is learning a new skill, ultimately the goal is for the child to demonstrate the skill independently. By using a prompting hierarchy, an adult can aid in a child’s learning by providing the least amount of assistance, or support, needed (MacDuff et al., 2001). For example, a mother is wanting her son to learn how to wash his hands and begins by verbally (lowest on the hierarchy) prompting him to turn on the water faucet and wet his hands. Her son begins to reach for the soap. The mother quickly gestures (second step) toward the cold-water faucet handle by tapping her finger on it. Her son, then, reaches to turn the faucet on instead of getting soap. The mother returns to using a verbal prompt by repeating the second direction of wetting his hands, and her son wets his hands. In this example, the son only needed a limited level of support to complete the task; therefore, his mother did not need to move higher up on the prompting hierarchy and provide more intensive support. By following this hierarchy, and providing the least amount of assistance needed, the mother is able to support her son and promote his independence in the skill over time.

Sometimes, children may need a higher level of assistance, especially toward the beginning of learning a new skill, and an adult may use the next level(s) of the hierarchy – visual, modeling, and physical. An example of a visual prompt is a poster or chart illustrating the steps of a skill placed where the child typically needs to complete the skill. An example of a physical prompt is an adult guiding a child’s hands to complete a task (MacDuff et al., 2001).

Role-Playing

Role-playing can be an effective and fun way to engage a child in learning a skill. Role-playing involves individuals acting as if they are in a certain situation or setting (Graves et al., 2007; Terpstra et al., 2002). For example, a teacher may role-play a bullying situation with a student who struggles to regulate his emotions by acting as if he is a peer and telling the student that he does not like his shoes. The student is then able to practice an appropriate response to the situation as if it were happening, whether the skill be ignoring the remark, communicating his feelings and telling the peer to leave him alone, or seeking out an adult for assistance.

By providing unique opportunities to practice, role-playing is especially useful in situations where a child has already been taught how to do a skill (e.g., deep breathing to calm oneself) but is needing support in mastering the skill and consistently using it in real-life situations. Additionally, role-playing can be utilized with multiple children at one time, with each playing a particular role and gaining practice with beneficial skills (Graves et al., 2007; Terpstra et al., 2002).

References

Bandura, A. (1965). Behavioral modification through modeling procedures. Research in behavior modification: New development and implications, 310-340.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63(3), 575-582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925

Engarhos, P., Shohoudi, A., Crossman, A., & Talwar, V. (2020). Learning through observing: Effects of modeling truth‐and lie‐telling on children’s honesty. Developmental science, 23(1), e12883.

Graves, K. N., Frabutt, J. M., & Vigliano, D. (2007). Teaching conflict resolution skills to middle and high school students through interactive drama and role play. Journal of School Violence, 6(4), 57-79.

MacDuff, G. S., Krantz, P. J., & McClannahan, L. E. (2001). Prompts and prompt-fading strategies for people with autism. Making a difference: Behavioral intervention for autism, 37-50.

Spence, S. H. (2003). Social skills training with children and young people: Theory, evidence and practice. Child and adolescent mental health, 8(2), 84-96.

Terpstra, J. E., Higgins, K., & Pierce, T. (2002). Can I play? Classroom-based interventions for teaching play skills to children with autism. Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 17(2), 119-127.

Watkins, L., Kuhn, M., Ledbetter-Cho, K., Gevarter, C., & O’Reilly, M. (2017). Evidence-based social communication interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder. The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 84(1), 68-75.