A Review and Critical Examination of the System of Least Prompts

Abstract

We systematically reviewed more than 25 years of applied research examining the system of least prompts response prompting procedure with individuals with disabilities. We identified 123 peer-reviewed studies including 413 participants receiving instruction with the system of least prompts. A total of 252 experimental designs were evaluated, with 51 designs indicating a functional relation and the presence of 154 demonstrations of effect across 91 individuals. Our data indicate that the system of least prompts is an evidenced-based practice for teaching chained responses related to community, self-care, and vocational skills to individuals with moderate intellectual disability who are 13 years of age or older. In addition, we present and discuss a method for analyzing and aggregating data from single-case studies to account for noneffects and publication bias when identifying if an intervention meets standards as an evidence-based practice.